Little Shelford is a village located to the south of

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cam ...

, in the county of

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the ...

, in eastern

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The

River Granta The River Granta is the name of two of the four tributaries of the River Cam, although both names are often used synonymously. The Granta starts near the village of Widdington in Essex, flowing north past Audley End House to merge with th ...

lies between it and the larger village of

Great Shelford Great Shelford is a village located approximately to the south of Cambridge, in the county of Cambridgeshire, in eastern England. In 1850 Great Shelford parish contained bisected by the river Cam. The population in 1841 was 803 people. By 2001 ...

, and both are served by

Shelford railway station Shelford railway station is on the West Anglia Main Line serving the villages of Great Shelford, Little Shelford and Stapleford in Cambridgeshire, England. It is down the line from London Liverpool Street and is situated between and . Its t ...

, which is on the

West Anglia Main Line The West Anglia Main Line is one of the two main lines that operate out of , the other being the Great Eastern Main Line, which operates services to Ipswich and Norwich via Colchester. It runs generally north through Cheshunt, Broxbourne, Har ...

from

London Liverpool Street Liverpool Street station, also known as London Liverpool Street, is a central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in the north-eastern corner of the City of London, in the ward of Bishopsgate Without. It is the t ...

. The village has one

pub A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

, The Navigator, on the High Street. The parish is mostly low-lying. It is bounded on the west by the M11 motorway and by field boundaries, and on the east by the River Cam or Granta. The highest point of the parish is Clunch Pit Hill, 31 m (TL447499).

Church and notable families

The Church of All Saints, Little Shelford is the village's

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...

. The church is a

Grade II* listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Ir ...

, and dates from the 12th century. Rowley's Hill Obelisk

Three tablets commemorate General Sir

Charles Wale Sir Charles Wale KCB (16 August 1765 – 20 March 1845) was an English General and the last British governor of Martinique between about 1812 and 1815. On 25 February 1831 he was appointed Colonel of the 33rd Regiment of Foot and was given the g ...

, who survived many battles to die at Little Shelford in 1848; his son, who fell at the Siege of Lucknow; and his eight grandsons and great-grandsons who died in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Other notable members of the Wale family associated with Little Shelford include

Thomas Wale Thomas Wale was a Cambridgeshire gentleman born at Risby, Suffolk on 7 September 1701 and died in 1796. He is notable for having left a significant quantity of documents collated throughout his life which constituted the book ''My Grandfather's P ...

Gregory Wale Gregory Wale (1668 – 5 June 1739) was a Cambridgeshire gentleman, a Justice of the Peace for Cambridgeshire and Conservator of the River Cam. Parents Gregory Wale was the son of Thomas Wale of Lackford, Suffolk (born 8 January 1642) and P ...

and Henry Charles Wale. A monument to Gregory Wale can be seen on St Margaret's Mount to the west of the village.

Locality

The de Freville

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals w ...

survives. One of many hidden ways leads past the manor and the farm where the river slips through a wood and

kingfisher Kingfishers are a family, the Alcedinidae, of small to medium-sized, brightly colored birds in the order Coraciiformes. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with most species found in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Oceania, ...

s streak over an ancient mill pool. The children's writer

Philippa Pearce Ann Philippa Pearce OBE (22 January 1920 – 21 December 2006) was an English author of children's books. Best known of them is the time-slip novel ''Tom's Midnight Garden'', which won the 1958 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association, as ...

renamed the village "Little Barley", with Great Shelford becoming "Great Barley", the River Cam, which flows through the area, becoming the "River Say", and Cambridge being renamed "Castleford" and deprived of its university. These names are used in a number of her books, most famously '' Minnow on the Say'' (1955) and ''

Tom's Midnight Garden ''Tom's Midnight Garden'' is a children's fantasy novel by Philippa Pearce. It was first published in 1958 by Oxford University Press with illustrations by Susan Einzig. It has been reissued in print many times and also adapted for radio, tele ...

'' (1958).

References

* Mee, Arthur, (revised by CLS Linnell & ET Long), ''The King's England - Cambridgeshire'', Hodder and Stoughton, London, New revised edition, 1965, P.165-6.

External links

Little Shelford website2001 CensusAll Saints churchLittle Shelford history website
{{authority control Villages in Cambridgeshire Civil parishes in Cambridgeshire South Cambridgeshire District