It all started a few millennia ago, when the forces of Nature scrunched together the land mass that became India, and threw the Western Ghats into a turmoil of highs and lows like a piece of crumpled silk. Later, these hills covered themselves with satiny grass and towering trees, hiding in their folds some of the most beautiful hideaways known (or unknown). Fringe Ford lies hidden in one of these valleys.
DISCOVERED IN 1912
ERSTWHILE ESTATE
A British settler discovered the beauty of the country in 1912, and its huge potential as cultivable land, and acquired the property which he turned into estate, cultivating the local pepper, cardamom and coffee on its slopes. He built the house,that still stands there. He named it Fringe Ford. The name stuck, but nothing else. Fringe Ford changed hands, and soon found its way to its present owner, who decided to give something back to nature with minimally destructive plantation methods. Now, Fringe Ford stretches out over a 1000 acres on all sides, some of it still chalked out for cultivation but a large portion of it turned over to the elephants, the leopards, the squirrels and the other species that call it home. The forest has long grown over the cultivated slopes, and unique species of plants, ferns and massive, rain-giving trees now thicken the hills.
Fringe Ford has come full circle, and today, is one of the few pieces of Malabar rain forest that the world has to show along with conscious minimally destructive plantation activities.