Caxton is a village and civil parish in South Cambridgeshire, about nine miles west of Cambridge city centre as the crow flies. The village lies on Ermine Street, the A1198, which follows the line of the Roman road and runs right through the parish. Its neighbours are Cambourne to the north-east, Bourn to the south-east, Longstowe to the south, Great Gransden (across the district boundary in Huntingdonshire) to the south-west, Eltisley to the west and Papworth Everard to the north.
The 2021 Census recorded about 600 people living in the parish. The village is separate from Cambourne, which has its own parish next door, and from Caxton Gibbet, the road junction at the northern tip of the parish, more than a mile north of the village, where Ermine Street meets the old Cambridge to St Neots road.
Ermine Street was once part of the Great North Road, and later the Old North Road, and traffic on it shaped Caxton's history. Medieval references show the village was a popular stopping place for travellers. A post office was open at Caxton many years before 1660, and in the mid 18th century the only official postal services in the county were at Cambridge and Caxton.
In the 1240s Baldwin de Freville was granted a weekly market, held beside the road. A later grant of 1668 to Sir Ralph Bovey, of a Tuesday market and two yearly fairs, made Caxton one of the seven market towns in the county in the 18th century. A turnpike gate was set up in 1663 but removed five years later because it could easily be avoided.
The village declined after the coaching era ended. By 1864 the George inn had shrunk to one end of its large building, and the inns that depended on traffic on the London road gradually closed. Both former inns still stand on Ermine Street, now known as The Crown House and Caxton Manor House.
Caxton probably began as a late Scandinavian settlement in a wooded area. The Domesday Book of 1086 records 35 peasants, with Hardwin de Scalers holding the whole vill from the king. The parish church stands apart from the modern village, to the south-west, and the Victoria County History suggests the original village lay around the lanes north and east of the church before houses moved out to the main road.
The parish has several medieval moated sites. Two are scheduled monuments: Caxton Moats, a moated site with fishponds and a warren north-west of Caxton Hall, and the moated site at Pastures Farm.
The population was 336 in 1801 and reached a peak of 631 in 1871, before falling steadily to 451 in 1901 and 368 in 1961. Fires in 1896 and 1897 destroyed more than a dozen cottages. The open fields were inclosed in the 1830s. A workhouse for the Caxton and Arrington poor law union was built in the village in 1836 and had closed by 1933. Since the Second World War the village has grown to the north, with a small housing estate at Brockholt Road.
The Caxton Conservation Area was designated in September 1975. Greater Cambridge Shared Planning publishes a boundary map for it.
The Parish Church of St Andrew on Gransden Road is listed Grade II*. Historic England dates the chancel and west wall of the nave to the 13th century, and the nave, south aisle and tower to the 14th and 15th centuries, with restorations in 1863, when the south aisle and south porch were rebuilt, and in 1929 to 1930 and 1937. A church had been established at Caxton by about 1145, when it was granted to Lewes Priory. It passed to the Dean and Canons of Windsor in 1351.
Caxton Hall, on St Peter's Street, is listed Grade II*. Historic England describes it as a red brick house of about 1670, with an early 18th-century extension.
The Crown House on Ermine Street, listed Grade II*, was the Crown coaching inn. Historic England dates it to the 16th or early 17th century, with later alterations. The list entry records that the Crown was the collecting Post Office for north Cambridgeshire by the end of the 18th century, was used as a magistrates' court until 1839, and ceased to be an inn about 1860.
Caxton Manor House on Ermine Street, also listed Grade II*, was at one time the George coaching inn. Historic England dates it to the late 16th century, refronted in the early 18th century, with a brick clock turret dated 1887. It faces the original market site.
Other listed buildings on Ermine Street include The Old Court House, built in 1859 as the divisional magistrates' court, police station and prison and in use until 1969, the Baptist Chapel, which Historic England dates to 1845, and a mid 19th-century drinking fountain at the junction with Bourn Road.
Caxton has no school of its own. The village school closed in 1959. The nearest state schools are in neighbouring Cambourne, about a mile away, including Monkfield Park Primary School for children aged 3 to 11 and Cambourne Village College, a secondary school for ages 11 to 18. Families should confirm current catchment with Cambridgeshire County Council admissions.
Check National Rail for current train times before you travel.
Caxton's older houses line Ermine Street, several of them listed, and since the Second World War the village has grown northwards around Brockholt Road.
HM Land Registry recorded 7 standard sales of homes in Caxton between October 2024 and August 2026, the most recent in December 2025, leaving out one sale of a building plot. The median price was £350,000. Of those sales, 3 were detached houses and 4 semi-detached, with prices ranging from £235,000 to £950,000. With so few sales, and 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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Caxton is about nine miles west of Cambridge city centre in a straight line.
No. Cambourne is a separate parish that adjoins Caxton to the north-east. Caxton Gibbet is the road junction at the northern tip of Caxton parish, more than a mile north of the village.
No. The nearest station is St Neots, nearly seven miles to the west, with Thameslink trains to Peterborough and through London. Cambridge station is about ten miles to the east.
Part of the village is. The Caxton Conservation Area was designated in 1975. The parish has four buildings listed Grade II*: St Andrew's Church, Caxton Hall, The Crown House and Caxton Manor House.
