FORDHAM, a parish in the hundred of STAPLOE,
county of CAMBRIDGE, 5 miles (N.) from Newmarket,
containing 1042 inhabitants. The living is a discharged
vicarage, in the archdeaconry of Sudbury, and diocese
of Norwich, rated in the king's books at £13: 6. 8.,
and in the patronage of the Master and Fellows of
Jesus College, Cambridge. The church is dedicated to
St. Mary. The Independents have a place of worship
here. There are six almshouses for poor widows,.erected
by Thomas Hinson, in 1626. A small Gilbertine priory
was founded in the reign of Henry III., by Sir Robert
de Fordham, as a cell to the great monastery of the
same order at Sempringham in Lincolnshire, scarcely a
vestige of which remains. James I., when coursing-in
this parish, took refreshment at a place still called "the
King's Path," and killed a hare near the spot; this
circumstance being commemorated upon a beam still
preserved in the church, by a carved representation 01
two greyhounds pursuing a hare. .