Shudy Camps is a village in the south-east corner of

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and North ...

, England, near the border of

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

and

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

, and is part of the Chilford Hundred. In 2001, according to the census, the population was 310, increasing to 338 at the 2011 Census. The area of the village is . It includes the nearby

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

of Mill Green. The highest point in the parish is 383' ASL at Mill Green.

History

The parish of Shudy Camps lies 12 miles south-east of

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

and was, until about the 14th century, known as Little Camps. It is probable that settlement in the area began in small clearings in the woodland. The chance discovery of ancient grave sites on the south west slope of White Hills Field (part of Carters Farm) was reported in the “ Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society”. In 1933 it was decided to try and find these burial sites again, in order to date them and subsequently a further 148 burials were found and dated as the earliest form of Christian Saxon culture in the area.

Etymology

Camp derives from Latin ''campus'' ('field') and usually denoted an enclosed piece of land. Shudy may derive from Middle English ''schudde'' ('shed').

St Mary's Church

St Mary’s Church ( CoE) is one of 5 parishes in the Linton Team Ministry (

Linton Linton may refer to: Places Australia * Linton, Victoria Canada * Linton, Ontario * Linton, Quebec United Kingdom England * Linton, Cambridgeshire * Linton, Derbyshire * Linton (near Bromyard), Herefordshire * Linton (near Ross-on-Wye), Her ...

Bartlow Bartlow is a small village and civil parish in the South Cambridgeshire district of Cambridgeshire, England, about south-east of Cambridge and west of Haverhill in Suffolk. The River Granta runs through the village. History At Bartlow is on ...

Castle Camps Castle Camps was a Norman Castle located in what is now the civil parish of Castle Camps, Cambridgeshire. Owners Castle Camps was originally a Saxon manor, belonging to Wulfwin, a Thane of King Edward the Confessor. After the Norman invasion, W ...

Horseheath Horseheath is a village in Cambridgeshire, England, situated a few miles south-east of Cambridge, between Linton, Cambridgeshire, Linton and Haverhill, Suffolk, Haverhill, on the A1307 road. It was known to the Roman Empire, Romans, and it had f ...

and Shudy Camps). The church of St Mary, so called from ''c.'' 1200, consists of a chancel, nave with south porch, and west tower, and is built of field stones with

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

dressings. Fragments of 12th-century carvings have been re-used in the walls, and the south doorway of the chancel is probably 13th-century. That of the nave, perhaps 14th-century, retains the original door under modern boarding, and the porch has medieval roof-beams. The three-storey tower, its upper portion mostly rebuilt in brick though including the earlier belfry windows, has a 14th-century west window, in whose

spandrels A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame; between the tops of two adjacent arches or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fill ...

are carved much-worn figures of the Virgin and Child and of a knight. The nave was apparently widened to the south in the 15th century, leaving the chancel off-centre. Its three-light windows, the western pair renewed, have complicated tracery. The chancel and chancel arch date from later in that century, as do the three-light windows under depressed arches. The plain nave roof is probably of ''c''. 1500.

External links

2001 census profileShudy Camps Parish Council Website

Walks in and around Shudy Camps by Roger Lemon

References

Villages in Cambridgeshire Civil parishes in Cambridgeshire South Cambridgeshire District {{Cambridgeshire-geo-stub