Foxton is a village and civil parish in South Cambridgeshire, nearly seven miles south-south-west of Cambridge city centre as the crow flies. The River Cam, also known as the Rhee, forms the northern boundary of the parish. Its neighbouring parishes are Barrington, Harston, Newton, Thriplow and Heathfield, Fowlmere and Shepreth.
The 2021 Census recorded about 1,300 people living in the parish. The village has its own railway station, and its historic core along the High Street lies within the Foxton Conservation Area.
In 1908 Dr William Briggs, who had just bought Foxton House and Hall, set up the University Tutorial Press in the village, mainly to print textbooks for his correspondence courses. Its printing and bookbinding works, built in Arts and Crafts style on the site of Welbores Farm by Station Road, still stand in the village centre. At about the same time four blocks of four homes were built along Station Road for the print workers and named after authors. They were the first houses in the village to have piped water.
In the 1960s the press employed 60 to 80 people, half of them living in Foxton, and was the village's largest single employer. It was taken over by a Cambridge printing company in 1975 and renamed the Burlington Press. The 2018 conservation area appraisal records that the 1908 building, now known as Burlington Park, has been extended and provides commercial premises for a range of businesses.
Settlement at Foxton goes back almost 2,000 years. A Belgic settlement of the first century AD was followed by a Romano-British farmstead near Hoffer bridge, and a pagan English cemetery has been traced north of Foxton station. The Domesday Book of 1086 recorded 43 inhabitants, among them 21 villani and 21 bordars. The principal manor, of 5â…“ hides, belonged to the nuns of Chatteris Abbey from before the Norman Conquest.
In 1310 Constantine Mortimer was granted a three-day fair at the feast of St Lawrence, and in 1326 William de la Haye was granted a weekly market on Fridays, presumably held on the green at the west end of the street. That green was used for fairs until 1912, and a fair held around Easter survived into the mid 1950s.
A brook once ran along the village street and was the main source of water until 1873, when Canon William Selwyn paid for deep wells to supply pumps. The brook was then partly filled in and partly put underground. The parish was enclosed in 1830. The population grew from 322 in 1801 to 811 in 1971, and the number of homes rose from 180 in 1951 to 290 by 1971.
The Foxton Conservation Area was first designated in 1972. Its original boundary was very small and left out most of the village's listed buildings, including the parish church, so it was extended when the current appraisal was adopted in 2018. The appraisal highlights the medieval High Street with its strong linear character, the large number of listed timber-framed buildings, and the University Tutorial Press works and cottages. Building materials include timber frame, render, red and buff brick, thatch, peg tiles, pantiles and slate, with brick, flint and clunch boundary walls.
The Church of St Laurence on the High Street is listed Grade I. Historic England dates its chancel and nave to the late 12th or early 13th century, its north and south nave arcades and aisles to the early 14th century, and its clerestory and west tower to about 1475. It is built of fieldstone and flint with limestone dressings. Juliana Selwyn, Canon Selwyn's widow, gave £1,200 towards a restoration of the church by the architect Ewan Christian, which cost £2,000.
The Bury, 51 High Street, is listed Grade II. Historic England dates the house to 1593, much remodelled in the late 17th century, and records a clunch fireplace and overmantel of 1593 in the hall. It stands nearly opposite the church and was the farmstead of Chatteris Abbey's manor, known by 1513 as the Bury.
Foxton House, 11 High Street, is listed Grade II. Historic England dates it to 1825, built for William Hurrell and extended later in the 19th century, in gault brick with a hipped slate roof. It was later the home of Canon Selwyn and his widow Juliana, both benefactors to the parish.
Foxton Primary School is a community school on Hardman Road. It takes children from Reception (age 4) to Year 6; official records give its age range as 5 to 11. Ofsted last inspected the school on 30 November and 1 December 2022, and the full report is available on the Ofsted website.
Foxton has no secondary school of its own. A 2014 South Cambridgeshire District Council study gives Melbourn Village College as the catchment secondary school. Catchment areas can change, so families should confirm current catchment with Cambridgeshire County Council admissions.
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Foxton's older houses stand along the High Street. The Victoria County History records timber-framed houses from the 16th and early 17th centuries and more than 20 one-storeyed cottages of the late 17th and 18th centuries, many of them timber-framed and thatched. Council houses were built along Station Road from the 1920s, and after the Second World War the village grew with a council estate on the rising ground south of the village and, in the 1970s, private estates of about 100 houses.
HM Land Registry recorded 27 standard residential sales in Foxton between October 2024 and February 2026, the month of the most recent recorded sale. The median price was £606,000. Of those sales, 17 were detached houses, 9 semi-detached and 1 terraced, with prices ranging from £272,000 to £1,195,000. 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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Foxton is nearly seven miles south-south-west of Cambridge city centre in a straight line.
Yes. Foxton station is just north of the village, with Great Northern trains to Cambridge and London King's Cross. Shepreth station is just over a mile to the west.
Yes. The Foxton Conservation Area was first designated in 1972 and was extended in 2018, when its current appraisal was adopted. It covers the historic core along the High Street, including the Grade I listed Church of St Laurence.
Foxton Primary School on Hardman Road serves the village. The catchment secondary school is given as Melbourn Village College; please confirm current catchment with Cambridgeshire County Council.
