Landwade

Coordinates: 52°17′10″N 0°23′0″E / 52.28611°N 0.38333°E / 52.28611; 0.38333 Landwade is a parish in west Suffolk, England, four miles north of Newmarket. One of the smallest parishes in the county, it is only 1 kilometre from north to south and at most 500m from east to west.

The village is crossed by New River (formerly known as Monk's Lode), a small river that flows through Wicken Fen and reaches the River Cam at Upware. The village's name probably derives in part from gewaed an Old English word meaning "ford".

History

The area around Landwade was occupied in Roman times, and a villa was situated just to the south of the modern parish.

Although it has existed since early medieval times, the parish of Landwade has always been comparatively small. By the late 13th century it consisted of around 300 acres of farmland and around 1400 acres of fen, but boundary changes between 1881 and 1954 reduced it to its present size of only 127 acres. The civil parish was amalgamated with Fordham, Cambridgeshire in 1954, though it is now part of the parish of Exning in Suffolk.