Great Kneighton is a large housing development and residential area in the southern part of the City of Cambridge district of Cambridgeshire, adjacent to, and integrated with, the neighbouring village of Trumpington. Together with nearby development Trumpington Meadows, it forms part of the southern fringe expansion of the city. Currently nearing completion by developers Countryside Properties, it will ultimately consist of almost 2,300 homes.
The development is named after a now-lost area of land named Great Kneighton attested since the 13th century. The name appears to have been assigned to an area of countryside somewhat to the east of the new settlement, within the former Trumpington parish on the site of what is now Addenbrooke's Hospital and the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. [1]
The name of historical Great Kneighton (together with its also-lost counterpart Little Kneighton immediately to its north) is a continuation of the 13th century name Kinetun, [2] which is thought to stem from Old English cyne tun (“king's/royal manor”) although there is no evidence of such a manor on the site.
280 new homes are being built on the Glebe Farm site, south of Shelford Road. [3] These are mainly apartments. Forty per cent of the homes will be "affordable homes", a mixture of rental and intermediate housing, provided by Cambridgeshire Partnerships Limited. The first residents arrived in late 2012. North of Shelford Road, on the Clay Farm site, 2300 homes are to be built, along with a new secondary school, Trumpington Community College (opened in 2015), [4] allotments, and a 120-acre country park. A new neighbourhood centre for Trumpington as a whole will host library provision, community facilities, medical facilities, retail space, youth facilities, as well as office space for the police and social services. Again forty per cent of the homes will be "affordable homes". [5]
As well as providing the allotments, an adventure playground and sports facilities for the planned secondary school, the new park will provide the local community with extensive woodlands, a bird reserve, areas of wetland with balancing ponds and sustainable urban drainage systems, used for harvesting rainwater. All will contribute to the site's biodiversity. Planting has started on the southern half of the Country Park and will include over 13,000 new trees and bushes.
The development's environmentally-friendly credentials extend to encouraging greener modes of transport too, as well as protecting and enhancing the existing natural habitat. It offers easily accessible cycle stores, cycleways and footpaths. There are good public transport links provided by the Guided Busway which provides services to Addenbrooke's and, with a detour via the hospital, to the railway station, city centre and St. Ives.
Great Kneighton is due south of Cambridge's city centre. Trumpington village proper is immediately to the west, Cambridge Biomedical Campus to the east, beyond the West Anglia Main Line which runs along the eastern edge of the development, with the adjacent village of Great Shelford in the neighbouring South Cambridgeshire district to the south.
The development comprises two sub-developments. Clay Farm is the larger of the two, consisting of all the development from Long Road in the north through to Shelford Road in the south. The major aforementioned amenities in the area, Trumpington Community College and Trumpington Park Primary School, as well as the development's centre, Hobson's Square, are all found within the Clay Farm area. Glebe Farm, the second sub-development, is the smaller of the two and skirts the southern area of Trumpington from Shelford Road in the east to Hauxton Road in the west.
Hobson's Brook, constructed in 1614 to provide drinking water to the growing city of Cambridge, travels through the development separating the residential area from the country park, named Hobson's Park after the waterway. The conduit also gives its name to Hobson's Square, the main square of the development which is currently under construction, as well as two roads in Great Kneighton: Hobson Road and Hobson Avenue.
The nearest access to the rail network is currently Cambridge railway station, however there are proposals for a Cambridge South railway station which would serve the southern areas of the city, including Great Kneighton, as well as the Biomedical Campus and nearby Cherry Hinton. [6]
Prior to the commencement of construction, Oxford Archaeology East undertook archaeological excavations. The 20-hectare (49-acre) site represented the largest single archaeological excavation ever to have been undertaken in the Cambridge area. [7] The team found evidence of activity from the Early Neolithic (c. 4000BC) up to the present, with the bulk of the archaeology dating from the Middle Bronze Age to and Late Iron Age-Early Roman periods. [8] Initially laid out around 1500 BC, the system of middle Bronze Age rectilinear fields and enclosures covered more than half the excavation area, though there was a noticeable absence at the centre of the site. The enclosures may have been for cattle which would have been a valuable resource that needed to be retained and protected from wild animals and rustlers. The enclosures were about 60–90 m x 50 m, bounded by large deep ditches.
The large and highly significant finds assemblage included large quantities of shell-tempered Deverel-Rimbury pottery, flint-tempered finewares, animal bone, bone needles, a bronze spearhead, flint arrowheads, land large numbers of heated sandstones. The form of the late Iron Age occupation was very different – small fields and paddocks bounded by shallower and narrower ditches. No posthole structures were recorded, but the quantity of artefacts indicated direct occupation in parts. In the Late Iron Age, there was a high-status burial near the western edge of the development, close to the present Cambridge Professional Development Centre site. This has been dated to c. 35-40AD and included two bodies which had been cremated. They were accompanied by grave goods from overseas, including pottery vessels and a fine toiletry set.
The settlement continued into the early Roman period before the area was abandoned, probably before the end of the 2nd century. However, one of the most puzzling features on the site, a double ditched sub-circular ‘monument’, partially lying beyond the southwest edge of excavation, dated from a later period. The remains of at least three individuals, five late Roman bracelets and a group of large iron nails, with butchered cattle remains interspersed, were recovered from high up in the inner ditch, suggesting a funerary function for the feature. Some abraded late Roman pottery was also recovered. The human remains appear to have been redeposited, perhaps from a nearby cemetery, in the very late or even post-Roman period.
The choice of the name Great Kneighton has provoked controversy among some local organisations and resident groups of neighbouring Trumpington. [9] [10] Historically, the name had been used for an area of the former Trumpington parish somewhat further to the east, now within the grounds of Addenbrooke's Hospital, [11] and these groups voiced disappointment that they had not been consulted prior to the unveiling of the name by Countryside, believing it to be inappropriate. Countryside defended the choice of name by stating that only part of the development is in Trumpington, that the name avoids confusion with other nearby developments, and that the name is appropriate given these circumstances. [12]
Cambridge is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately 55 miles (89 km) north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge became an important trading centre during the Roman and Viking ages, and there is archaeological evidence of settlement in the area as early as the Bronze Age. The first town charters were granted in the 12th century, although modern city status was not officially conferred until 1951.
Addenbrooke's Hospital is an internationally renowned teaching hospital and research centre in Cambridge, England, with strong affiliations to the University of Cambridge. Addenbrooke's Hospital is based on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus. The hospital is run by Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and is a designated academic health science centre. It is also the East of England's major trauma centre and was the first such centre to be operational in the United Kingdom.
West Cambridge is a university site to the west of Cambridge city centre in England. As part of the West Cambridge Master Plan, several of the University of Cambridge's departments have relocated to the West Cambridge site from the centre of town due to overcrowding. A number of other research institutions also have buildings on the site.
The Gog Magog Hills are a range of low chalk hills, extending for several miles to the southeast of Cambridge in England. The highest points are situated either side of the A1307 Babraham Road, and are marked on Ordnance Survey 1:25000 maps as "Telegraph Clump" at 75 m (246 ft), Little Trees Hill and Wandlebury Hill, both at 74 m (243 ft). The area as a whole is undefined but is roughly the elevated area lying north west of the 41 m (135 ft) col at Worsted Lodge.
South Cambridgeshire is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2019 by Anthony Browne, a Conservative.
Devil's Dyke or Devil's Ditch is a linear earthen barrier, thought to be of Anglo-Saxon origin, in eastern Cambridgeshire and Suffolk. It runs for 7 miles in an almost straight line from Reach to Woodditton, with a 10-metre-high ditch and bank system facing southwestwards, blocking the open chalkland between the marshy fens to the north and the formerly wooded hills to the south. It is a Scheduled Monument, a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Special Area of Conservation.
Oxford Archaeology is one of the largest and longest-established independent archaeology and heritage practices in Europe, operating from three permanent offices in Oxford, Lancaster and Cambridge, and working across the UK. OA is a Registered Organisation with the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (CIfA), and carries out commercial archaeological fieldwork in advance of development, as well as a range of other heritage related services. Oxford Archaeology primarily operates in the UK, but has also carried out contracts around the world, including Sudan, Qatar, Central Asia, China and the Caribbean. Numbers of employees vary owing to the project-based nature of the work, but in 2014 OA employed over 220 people.
Trumpington is a village and parish to the south of Cambridge, England. The village is an electoral ward of the City of Cambridge and a ward of South Cambridgeshire District Council. The 2011 Census recorded the ward's population as 8,034.
Hobson's Conduit, also called Hobson's Brook, is a watercourse that was built from 1610 to 1614 by Thomas Hobson and others to bring fresh water into the city of Cambridge, England from springs at Nine Wells, a Local Nature Reserve, near the village of Great Shelford. It is now a Scheduled Ancient Monument and historical relic. The watercourse currently runs overground until Cambridge University Botanic Garden and Brookside, where it is at its widest. At the corner of Lensfield Road stands a hexagonal monument to Hobson, which once formed part of the market square fountain, and was moved to this location in 1856, after a fire in the Market. The flow of water runs under Lensfield Road, and subsequently runs along both sides of Trumpington Street in broad gutters towards Peterhouse and St Catharine's College, and also St Andrew's Street. The conduit currently ends at Silver Street.
The Cambridgeshire Guided Busway, known locally as The Busway, connects Cambridge, Huntingdon and St Ives in the English county of Cambridgeshire. It is the longest guided busway in the world, overtaking the O-Bahn Busway in Adelaide, South Australia.
Little Thetford is a small village in the civil parish of Thetford, 3 miles (5 km) south of Ely in Cambridgeshire, England, about 76 miles (122 km) by road from London. The village is built on a boulder clay island surrounded by flat fenland countryside, typical of settlements in this part of the East of England. During the Mesolithic era, the fenland basin was mostly dry and forested, although subject to salt and fresh water incursions. The marshes and meres of this fenland may therefore have been difficult to occupy, other than seasonally, but there is evidence of human settlement on the island since the late Neolithic Age; a Bronze Age causeway linked the village with the nearby Barway, to the south-east. An investigation, prior to a 1995 development in the village, discovered a farm and large tile-kiln of Romano-British origin; further investigations uncovered an earlier settlement of the Pre-Roman Iron Age. The Roman road Akeman Street passed through the north-west corner of the parish, and the lost 7th century Anglo-Saxon village of Cratendune may be nearby.
Countryside Partnerships plc, formerly Countryside Properties plc, is a UK housebuilding and urban regeneration company, operating mainly in London and the South East of England, but with a presence in the North West of England. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
Trumpington Street is a major historic street in central Cambridge, England. At the north end it continues as King's Parade where King's College is located. To the south it continues as Trumpington Road, an arterial route out of Cambridge, at the junction with Lensfield Road.
Lensfield Road is a road in southeast central Cambridge, England. It runs between the junction of Trumpington Street and Trumpington Road to the west and the junction of Regent Street and Hills Road to the west. It continues as Gonville Place to the northeast past Parker's Piece, a large grassed area with footpaths.
The Old Addenbrooke's Site is a site owned by the University of Cambridge in the south of central Cambridge, England. It is located on the block formed by Fitzwilliam Street to the north, Tennis Court Road to the east, Lensfield Road to the south, and Trumpington Street to the west.
Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about 50 miles (80 km) north of London. Its main transport links are the M11 road to London, the A14 east–west road and the West Anglia Main Line railway line to London.
Nine Wells is a 1.2 hectare Local Nature Reserve east of Trumpington, on the southern outskirts of Cambridge. It is owned and managed by Cambridge City Council.
The Cambridge Green Belt is a non-statutory green belt environmental and planning policy that regulates the rural space in the East of England region. It is centred on the city of Cambridge, along with surrounding areas. Essentially, the function of the belt is to control development in and around the Cambridge built up area, to prevent coalescence of nearby villages and preserve the historical character of the city. It is managed by local planning authorities on guidance from central government.
Trumpington Community College is a co-educational secondary school located in the Great Kneighton area of Cambridge in the English county of Cambridgeshire. The school is named after the village of Trumpington which is located nearby.