Oakington is a village in South Cambridgeshire, about four and a half miles north-west of Cambridge city centre as the crow flies. Since 1985 it has formed the civil parish of Oakington and Westwick together with the small hamlet of Westwick, which lies just under a mile to the north-east on the road to Cottenham. The parish borders Northstowe, which has had its own parish since 2021, as well as Girton, Histon, Longstanton, Cottenham, Dry Drayton, Rampton and Bar Hill.
The 2021 Census recorded about 1,500 people living in the parish. The historic core of the village, around St Andrew's Church and the High Street, is a conservation area.
Westwick has been part of Oakington's church parish since the early 14th century, after its people began to be buried and baptised at Oakington, whose church was much nearer than the parish church at Cottenham. It remained a separate civil parish until 1985, when the two were joined. The Victoria County History records probably four households at Westwick in 1086 and only 33 residents in 1981. Westwick has its own conservation area.
From 1940 the whole area north of the village, around 540 acres, was taken for the runways of RAF Oakington. The hangars, barracks and other buildings stood across the boundary in Longstanton. Two bomber squadrons flew from the airfield throughout the Second World War, and after the war it was used by transport squadrons and then by training schools. The army took over the site in 1975 as Oakington Barracks, and the runways were being torn up in 1978. The village windmill, rebuilt after a fire in 1863, was demolished in 1940 to make way for a runway.
Northstowe, a new town which South Cambridgeshire District Council says will have 10,000 homes and around 26,000 residents, is being built on the site of the former RAF Oakington base and surrounding farmland, alongside the guided busway. Following a district council review in 2020, a separate civil parish was created for Northstowe covering the whole development, reducing the size of the Oakington and Westwick and Longstanton parishes. Northstowe Town Council was first elected in 2021.
Burials from an early Anglo-Saxon cemetery have been found south of the church, on what is now the recreation ground. Excavation there in 1993 found 25 burials and a cremation. Oakington was relatively populous in the Middle Ages: the Domesday Book of 1086 records about 55 peasants, and the village was then divided between three holdings, one of them belonging to Crowland Abbey. After the Dissolution, Crowland's manor was sold and passed around 1560 to Queens' College, Cambridge, which kept the estate into the 20th century.
The population grew quickly in the early 19th century to a peak of 610 in 1851, but poverty and unemployment then drove heavy emigration, much of it to Adelaide in South Australia. In 1854 it was said that the population had fallen by a third in three years.
Oakington was a centre of religious dissent in the 17th century. A burial ground beside St Andrew's churchyard holds the graves of the nonconformist ministers Joseph Oddy (buried 1687) and Francis Holcroft (buried 1692), together with Henry Osland (died 1711), and is known locally as the Martyrs' Graves. A Baptist chapel was built around 1820, burnt down in 1865 and rebuilt the same year.
The railway between Cambridge and St Ives opened through the parish in 1847, and Oakington station, just west of Westwick bridge, closed in 1970. The village grew more quickly from the late 1950s, with small estates built on closes off the old streets.
The Oakington Conservation Area was designated in 1989, and the council's appraisal of it dates from 2005. It describes a nucleus of tight-knit historic buildings grouped mostly around the church and the High Street, with a large area of paddocks at the heart of the village giving open views towards the church. Medieval house platforms and ridge and furrow survive in the fields south-east of Water Lane. The earliest houses are timber framed and rendered, originally under thatch, while 19th-century houses are mostly of gault brick under Welsh slate roofs.
St Andrew's Church on the High Street is listed Grade II*. Built of pebblestone, pudding stone and limestone rubble, it dates from the 13th century, with 15th-century and 19th-century work, and has a battlemented four-stage west tower.
Listed houses on the High Street include Church Farmhouse (No. 56), which dates back to the 15th century, No. 68, a 16th-century timber-framed house, and the thatched cottages at No. 69 and Nos. 25 and 27, all listed Grade II.
The Baptist Chapel, rebuilt in 1865, is a substantial gault brick building with a simple pediment, and its adjoining schoolroom is dated 1877.
The pavilion and St Andrew's church hall host a range of village clubs and classes, and a mobile library calls at Coles Lane.
Oakington CofE Primary School is a Church of England academy on Water Lane, part of the Grace Schools trust since 2019. It takes children from Reception to Year 6. Ofsted last inspected the school in September 2023, and the full report is available on the Ofsted website.
Oakington has no secondary school of its own. The district council's services and facilities study places the village in the catchment area for Impington Village College. Catchment areas can change, so families should confirm current catchment with Cambridgeshire County Council admissions.
Check the operator or National Rail for current bus and train times before you travel.
Oakington's older homes are mostly 19th-century farmhouses and cottages in gault brick, with a few earlier timber-framed and thatched cottages on the High Street. The village grew more quickly from the late 1950s, with small estates added off the old streets.
HM Land Registry recorded 35 standard residential sales in Oakington between October 2024 and August 2026. The median price was £390,000. Of those sales, 13 were detached houses, 11 semi-detached and 11 terraced, with prices ranging from £145,000 to £1,125,000. Because the mix of homes sold varies from year to year, these figures give a general picture rather than a precise valuation.
Thinking of moving to or from Oakington? Book a free valuation or browse property for sale with our team.
Oakington is about four and a half miles north-west of Cambridge city centre in a straight line.
No. Northstowe is a separate new town being built on the former RAF Oakington base and surrounding farmland, and it has had its own civil parish and town council since 2021. Oakington remains a village in the parish of Oakington and Westwick.
Not any more. Oakington station closed in 1970, and the old line is now the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway, which has stops at Oakington. The nearest railway station is Cambridge North, just under five miles away.
Oakington CofE Primary School is in the village. The council's study places Oakington in the catchment area for Impington Village College; please confirm current catchment with Cambridgeshire County Council.
