Boreham
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- For the town in Hertfordshire, see Borehamwood.
Location and topography
The village lies on a Roman road (now a modern trunk road, the A12) and has a well known Norman church and a public house (The Cock Inn) that dates from the 1400s. The surrounding countryside is gently hilly and is used to grow crops such as wheat, sugar beet and peas.
Nearby places of interest
Just outside the village is Boreham House, a stately home that was once a palace of Henry VIII and was later the estate of the Tyrell family and latterly the Hoare banking family. Benjamin Hoare commissioned architect Henry Flitcroft to build the current house in 1727; the early Georgian mansion is now a Grade II listed building.
Car building
In the 1930s Boreham House and 3000 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 which continues to occupy the house. The house also served as the temporary home for Cranfield University.
Boreham airfield
A forest near the village was felled in 1943 to build a military airfield, and the three one-mile (1600 m) runways of RAF Boreham opened in 1944. It hosted elements of the US Air Force 394 Bomb Group (flying B-26 Marauder bombers) and later the 315th Troop Carrier Group flying C-47s. After World War II the three runways were adapted into a roughly triangular motor racing circuit, which hosted competitive meetings between 1949 and 1952. It was bought by Ford in 1955 for use as a development test track. Ford Motor Racing moved to Boreham in 1963, and although some of the track was removed for gravel quarrying in 1996 the remaining track surface continues to be used for testing. In 1990 Essex Police began using Boreham airfield as a control centre for its fleet of helicopters.
Rail communications
The railway line from Chelmsford to Colchester runs past the village, but the Boreham's local halt was removed in the 1960s as part of the Beeching cuts. In the 1970s a bypass was built on the edge of the village, along the same route as the A12 and the nearby railway line.
Trivia
Local legend has it that highwayman Dick Turpin rode the A12 on his famous ride from London to York, although historians now believe the ride never occurred.
External links
- [A 1912 postcard photo of Boreham House]
- [Details of the Boreham airfield and test-track]
- [Essex Police page on Boreham airfield]
- [Boreham - White's Directory of Essex, 1848]
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