Bottisham is a village and civil parish in East Cambridgeshire, about six miles east of Cambridge city centre as the crow flies and roughly halfway between Cambridge and Newmarket. The parish borders Lode to the north-west, Stow cum Quy to the west, Swaffham Bulbeck along its north-eastern side and Little Wilbraham along its south-western side, with Westley Waterless and Burrough Green meeting it at its far south-eastern tip.
The 2021 Census recorded about 2,400 people living in the parish. The ancient parish of Bottisham also included Lode until 1894, when it was divided for civil purposes into two parishes, Bottisham in the south and Lode in the north. Since at least 1800 the village has stood mostly along the High Street, which runs south-east from a small green known as Pound Hill.
An airfield was established at Bottisham in 1940 as a satellite of RAF Waterbeach. Bottisham Hall was taken over as the officers' mess and the southern half of its park was filled with military huts, while the runways extended south onto higher ground in Little Wilbraham. Fighter reconnaissance squadrons were based there from 1941 to 1943, with the number of airmen stationed there reaching 1,000 by 1943, and in 1944 the US 361st Fighter Group flew from it, escorting American bombers and carrying out ground attack missions, until it left in September 1944. After the war it briefly housed a Belgian air force training school in 1945 and 1946, before the airfield closed and its land was later sold for farming.
Bottisham Airfield Museum opened in 2009 to commemorate the airfield's wartime role. It operates from the last remaining airfield buildings within the original perimeter, on Wilbraham Road.
In 1086 the whole of the ancient parish, including Lode, had 37 peasants and 14 servi (unfree labourers), and Bottisham was held by Walter Giffard as a demesne manor. By the late 13th century the parish contained three hamlets besides the main village. One of them, Angerhale, had disappeared by the 16th century; the line of earthworks marking its plots is visible in the northern part of Bottisham Park, where a deserted medieval village site is a scheduled monument.
Fires repeatedly damaged the village. One in 1712 caused £3,000 of losses to 20 families, and in 1846 a fire started by a labourer with a grudge destroyed 18 cottages and left 70 people homeless. Most of those affected were rehoused by 1851 in three connected ranges of terraced cottages just west of the church, later known as the Arch, which were converted into seven larger homes around 1962.
Bottisham Women's Institute, founded in 1918, was the first in Cambridgeshire. The village grew quickly after the Second World War, from a civil population of 566 in 1951 to 975 in 1961 and 1,673 in 1971. The largest development was the Park Estate of more than 150 houses, begun around 1960 along and off Beechwood Avenue.
The historic centre of Bottisham is a conservation area, designated in 1973 according to the government's planning data register. East Cambridgeshire District Council's 2016 list of conservation areas records no appraisal document for it.
Holy Trinity Church is listed Grade I. Historic England's listing records that its early 13th-century chancel, west tower and west porch survive from an earlier church on the site, and that in the early 14th century the nave and aisles were rebuilt. It is built of clunch and limestone, and a 15th-century screen of clunch and limestone stands between the nave and chancel.
Bottisham Place, near the southern end of the village, is listed Grade II. Historic England describes it as a timber-framed open hall cased in gault brick, probably of 15th-century origins, with a 16th-century extension to the north and a south front remodelled in the early 19th century.
Bottisham Hall, in its park north-east of the village, is listed Grade II. Historic England describes it as a country house built in 1797 for the Rev G L Jenyns, possibly by Charles Humfrey, in grey brick with low hipped slate roofs.
Bottisham Community Primary School on Beechwood Avenue is an academy in the Anglian Learning trust and takes children aged 3 to 11, with nursery classes. Ofsted last inspected the school in June 2022, and the full report is available on the Ofsted website.
Bottisham Village College on Lode Road is a secondary academy, also part of Anglian Learning, for students aged 11 to 16. It opened in 1937. Ofsted last inspected the college in March 2024. Its admission arrangements for 2026/27 list Bottisham among the primary schools within its catchment. Families should confirm current catchment with Cambridgeshire County Council admissions.
A station at Lode, on the Cambridge to Fordham line opened in 1884, closed to passengers in 1962. Check National Rail for current train times before you travel.
Bottisham's housing ranges from older timber-framed houses along the High Street, many refaced in brick, to the 1960s Park Estate around Beechwood Avenue and later closes.
HM Land Registry recorded 49 standard residential sales in Bottisham between October 2024 and August 2026. The median price was £500,000. Of those sales, 26 were detached houses, 10 semi-detached, 12 terraced and 1 a flat or maisonette, with prices ranging from £126,000 to £1,545,000. Because the mix of homes sold varies from year to year, these figures give a general picture rather than a precise valuation.
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Bottisham is about six miles east of Cambridge city centre in a straight line, roughly halfway between Cambridge and Newmarket.
No. The nearest stations in a straight line are Waterbeach, just under four miles to the north-west, and Cambridge North, just over four miles to the west. Dullingham, about five miles away, has Greater Anglia trains towards Cambridge and Ipswich.
Yes. The historic centre, including Holy Trinity Church and Bottisham Place, lies within the Bottisham Conservation Area, designated in 1973.
Bottisham Community Primary School takes children aged 3 to 11, and Bottisham Village College in the village takes students aged 11 to 16. The college lists Bottisham among the primary schools within its catchment; please confirm current catchment with Cambridgeshire County Council.
