Littleport
Had a population around 4500

​During the Second World War in this area, most people lived in small gas-lit places. There were few cars and even fewer bright lights. Towns were grey brick, dull, quite isolated working settlements with most people employed within easy reach of their homes, often in agriculture or crafts and industries related to the rich soil of the Fens. Littleport, population of around 4,500 at thetime, although lying alongside the River Ouse was no longer a port. Despite being on the A10, traditionally it was quite an inaccessible settlement only really opened up by the main railway line from London to Kings Lynn in 1845. The village served the surrounding agricultural area with Hope Brothers, a shirt maker, being the major employer. The village still nursed long memories of the notorious Bread Riots of 1816 when a Littleport mob marched on Ely demanding better pay to buy flour and subsequently five men from the town were hanged in Ely. Download our Littleport information leaflet here!

Then and now

“Littleport…I do not remember it changing a lot from before the war to after.”

"The great excitement was about once a week, a boy bicycled down with ice-cream. Came from the shop in Littleport, Butcher’s ice-cream."

"...we had a bread horse and trap with the bread in the back... I think that was the Co-op baker what used to come round although there was two or three bakers in Littleport. That's where they were but course with the supermarkets they're all gone, the butchers are all gone..."

“The Regal – that was built in 1936. We used to have outings from school, we went, I remember going and seeing Captain Scott and one of Shakespeare’s plays as well.”

"The biggest change is the fact that everybody was either directly or certainly indirectly involved in farming. I mean, my family, we were employing 100 men."

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