Boreham

Coordinates: 51°45′36″N 0°32′31″E / 51.759978°N 0.542021°E / 51.759978; 0.542021

Boreham is a village and civil parish, in Essex, England. It is located approximately 6 km (3.7 mi) northeast from the county town of Chelmsford. The village is in the borough of Chelmsford and parliamentary constituency of Saffron Walden.

History

The parish of Boreham is ancient, and the village is mentioned in the Domesday Book as Borham.

Local legend holds that highwayman Dick Turpin rode the A12 on his famous ride from London to York, although historians now believe the ride never occurred.

In the 1930s Boreham House and 3,000 acres (12 km²) of land surrounding it was bought by car magnate Henry Ford. In addition to using the house as a school for training Ford tractor mechanics, the company's British chairman, Lord Perry, established Fordson Estates Limited there, and founded the Henry Ford Institute of Agricultural Engineering, an agricultural college. The house also served as the temporary home for the National College of Agricultural Engineering in 1962. This moved to Silsoe, Bedfordshire as Silsoe College later joining with Cranfield University. The Silsoe campus closed at the end of 2007.