Wisbech Wisbech Wisbech ( ) is a Fenland market town, inland port and civil parish in the Fens of Cambridgeshire, England. It had a population of 31,573 in 2011. The town lies in the far north-east of the county, bordering Norfolk and only 5 miles (8 km) south of Lincolnshire. The tidal River Nene running through the town centre is spanned by two bridges. Before the Local Government Act 1972 came into force in 1974 Wisbech was a municipal borough. Wisbece was recorded in the 1086 "Domesday". The name Wisbech is believed to mean "on the back of the (River) Ouse",
Wisbech authentic references to Wisbech occur in a charter dated 664 granting the Abbey at Medehamstead (now Peterborough) land in Wisbech and in 1000, when Oswy and Leoflede, on the admission of their son Aelfwin as a monk, gave the vill to the monastery of Ely. In 1086, when Wisbech was held by the abbot, there may have been some 65 to 70 families, or about 300 to 350 persons, in Wisbech manor. However, Wisbech, which is the only one of the Marshland vills of the isle to be mentioned in the "Domesday Book", probably comprised the whole area from Tydd