This was part of the Revolt of 1173–74 where King Henry II, led by Robert de Lucy fought the Flemish rebels for his son, Henry the Young King, led by Robert de Beaumont, 3rd Earl of Leicester.

Scribes of the time variously estimated that between 3000 and 10,000 Flemish mercenaries were slaughtered and lie beneath the fields, woodland and ditches.

[5] The village appears on John Speed's 1610 map as "Fernham mertin" and in 1870–72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described the town as a parish in Thingoe district, Suffolk in the Diocese of Ely; on the river Lark, 1¾ mile North of Bury St Edmunds and related that it had 74 houses, a post office, a church and a free school.

[citation needed] Fornham St Martin Church (OS grid TL8566) with King George's playing field across the way at the south end of B1106 to the village.

The churchyard contains a number of notable burials: Media related to Fornham St Martin at Wikimedia Commons