Fordham, Essex, England
Place research page generated from the structured place spine and the companion place markdown.
Fordham, one of the Essex Domesday manors associated with Hugh de Gournay III.
Linked ancestors
- G33 Hugh de Gournay III landholding / property reference
Village in northern Essex, England (near Colchester). Coordinates: 51.917, 0.801.
One of three Essex manors held by Hugh de Gournay III (G33) at Domesday (1086). The Domesday entry gives more detail than Liston or Ardleigh.
Why this place matters structurally
Fordham is presently the best-developed of the Essex Domesday trio in the project because it preserves a little more concrete descriptive content than Ardleigh or Liston. That does not make it the most important manor in absolute terms, but it does make it especially useful as a representative example of what Hugh III’s English Essex landholding looked like in practice. [DG-I] [Hannay]
For that reason, Fordham can function as a kind of interpretive anchor for the Essex set while still remaining one manor among three co-held Domesday places.
Gurney ancestors holding here
| Ancestor | Gen | Period | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hugh de Gournay III | G33 | c. 1020–c. 1093 | Domesday 1086 |
Domesday detail
Fordham had eleven bordarii and four servi per the Domesday entry (cited via DG and Hannay). This gives a sense of the working population on the manor c. 1086. The combined 15 low-status tenants/workers, together with arable land and livestock, suggest a mid-sized Essex manor of reasonable value.
Interpretive note
Because Fordham preserves a little more socio-economic texture than the other two Essex places, it is a good reminder that the Gournay family’s English footprint was not only a list of names on parchment but a set of working agricultural communities embedded in the post-Conquest tenurial order.
Primary-source hooks
- Domesday Book (1086) — Essex folio for Fordham. Accessible via Open Domesday.
Open items
- [ ] Pull the Domesday Essex entry for Fordham for full Latin text, valuations, and any detail on hides/carucates.
- [ ] Check whether Fordham remained in Gournay hands after Hugh III.
- [ ] Compare the valuation and labour profile with Ardleigh and Liston once the direct entries are extracted.
Sources
- Daniel Gurney, Record of the House of Gournay, Part I (1848), pp. 25–27. [DG-I]
- James Hannay, Three Hundred Years of a Norman House (1867), pp. 91–100. [Hannay]
- Domesday Book (1086), Essex folios.
ancestors v23.jsonG33 landholding entries.
Crosslinks
research/people/g33-hugh-de-gournay-iii-fact-sheet.research.mdresearch/places/liston.mdresearch/places/ardleigh.mdresearch/places/essex.md