Farming and Agricultural Labour

Explore the history of farming, agricultural labour, and rural communities across Cambridgeshire and the Fens.

For centuries, agriculture shaped the landscape, economy, and social life of Cambridgeshire and the Fens. Much of the region depended upon seasonal labour, market gardening, fruit growing, drainage work, and the rhythms of rural life. Villages and small communities were closely tied to the land, with generations of families working on farms, in orchards, or in related trades connected to food production and transport.

Agricultural work could be physically demanding and uncertain. Labourers often faced long hours, low wages, seasonal unemployment, and difficult living conditions. Women and children also played an important role in rural economies, particularly during harvest periods, fruit picking, and wartime food production. Oral histories and memoirs provide valuable insight into everyday experiences that are often absent from official records.

The fen landscape itself was transformed through drainage schemes, embankments, and waterways which turned marshland into productive agricultural land. Farming communities adapted continually to changing technologies, from horse-powered agriculture to mechanisation in the twentieth century. Railways and local industries also became closely linked to rural production, allowing produce to move quickly between villages, market towns, and wider markets.

This theme explores both traditional agricultural life and the social changes that reshaped rural communities during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

• Fenwomen: A Portrait of Women in an English Village, Isleham
  Oral histories of women living and working in the Fens, including agricultural labour, domestic work, seasonal employment, and family life.
• Women’s Land Army in Cambridgeshire
  Explores wartime food production and the important role played by women in agricultural labour during WWII.
• Chivers and Sons, Histon
  Illustrates the relationship between local fruit growing, jam production, food processing, and agricultural employment.
• Horse and Groom, Isleham Fen
  A fen-edge pub closely connected with agricultural workers, fen communities, and rural social life.
• Mill Road, Cambridge: 1823–1851
  Demonstrates how agricultural produce, labour, and transport links connected rural Cambridgeshire with the growing town of Cambridge.
• Burleigh House, Star Brewery, 13–15 Newmarket Road
  Shows links between agriculture, brewing, transport, and food-related industries in nineteenth-century Cambridge.