Dullingham is a small village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

East Cambridgeshire East Cambridgeshire (locally known as East Cambs) is a local government district in Cambridgeshire, England. Its council is based in Ely. The population of the District Council at the 2011 Census was 83,818. The district was formed on 1 April 19 ...

, England. It is situated south of Newmarket and east of

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a College town, 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. Cam ...

History

The parish of Dullingham covers 3387 acres in a long thin irregular shape running from just north of the Cambridge to Newmarket road to the Suffolk border, and is bounded to the south west by

Burrough Green Burrough Green is a village and parish in Cambridgeshire, England. The population of the village at the 2011 census was 378. The soil is various; subsoil, clay and chalk. The chief crops are wheat, barley and roots. The area of the parish is ; t ...

and to the north east by Stetchworth. The ancient

Icknield Way The Icknield Way is an ancient trackway in southern and eastern England that runs from Norfolk to Wiltshire. It follows the chalk escarpment that includes the Berkshire Downs and Chiltern Hills. Background It is generally said to be, wi ...

crosses the north west of the parish. The village seems to have existed for over 1,000 years. By the time of the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

in 1086, there were four land holdings and 46 peasants. Listed as ''Dullingeham'' in the Domesday Book, the village's name means "homestead of the family or followers of a man called Dulla".

Church

The church of St Mary the Virgin dates from the earliest records in the early 12th century. It consists of a chancel, aisled and clerestoried nave with north porch and south chapel, and west tower. The chancel is the earliest part of the present building, and was built in the 13th century. The tower was added in the 14th century, and the nave was rebuilt in the 15th century. The composer George Barcroft was appointed vicar of Dullingham in 1589. A

Wesleyan Wesleyan theology, otherwise known as Wesleyan– Arminian theology, or Methodist theology, is a theological tradition in Protestant Christianity based upon the ministry of the 18th-century evangelical reformer brothers John Wesley and Charle ...

chapel was opened in the village in 1826 and closed in the late 20th century.

Village life

The village has had its own railway station since 1848. Dullingham railway station lies on the Cambridge branch of the

Ipswich to Ely Line Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line ...

, and is about from the centre of Dullingham. Dullingham currently has two pubs, The Boot and The King's Head, which closed in 2012 but (in 2016) is now open again. It is situated in a 17th-century house and was in use as an alehouse in 1728. It belonged to the parish charity until 1931. The Boot, open since the mid-19th century stands on the village green. Several other former pubs were recorded in the 19th century, including the Rising Sun at Dullingham Ley that closed just after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, and the Royal Oak on Stony Street that closed in 1975. Other notable buildings in Dullingham include Dullingham House, The Old Bakery, The Maltings, The Guildhall, The Workhouse, The Wesleyan Chapel and the Mission hall. In 1945 the Taylor family bought the former Oddfellows' hall (built c. 1925), and gave it as a village hall. It is known as the Sidney Taylor Hall. Dullingham boasts active Cricket and Football teams, based on the sports ground on Stetchworth Road. Many other sports are also played on the Polo ground which is situated beyond the railway station on the road towards

Six Mile Bottom Six Mile Bottom is a hamlet within the parish of Little Wilbraham, near Cambridge in England. History In the 1790s the only building at Six Mile Bottom was a paddock run by a stable keeper. In 1802, a sizeable country house was built nearby. Ea ...

. Dullingham Primary School closed in the early 1990s, and pupils moved to a new school within Dullingham but on the border with Stetchworth that served both villages (Stetchworth School having closed at the same time). Women in the Dullingham Villages ward had the second highest life expectancy at birth, 97 years, of any ward in England and Wales in 2016.

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Cambridgeshire Civil parishes in Cambridgeshire East Cambridgeshire District