Stapleford is a village located approximately 4 miles to the south of

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

, in the county of

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfor ...

, in eastern

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

on the right-hand bank of the

River Granta The River Granta is the name of two of the four tributaries of the River Cam, although both names are often used synonymously. The Granta starts near the village of Widdington in Essex, flowing north past Audley End House to merge with the ot ...

. Stapleford is first mentioned in 956 when it was given the Latinised name of Stapelforda, formerly Stapleton. Unlike most parishes, the spelling has hardly changed since then. The parish, however, was inhabited long before this. Wandlebury Ring, which lies within the parish boundary, is an Iron Age hill fort, originally built in the 3rd century BC, but rebuilt with a double bank in the 1st century AD. More recently, the village found fame with the discovery that

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...

is a direct descendant of one Thomas Blossom, who grew up here towards the end of the 16th century before emigrating to the United States. Stapleford is home to two pubs, The Rose and The Three Horseshoes,. The village also is home t
Saint Andrew's church
a primary school, several garages, two hairdressers, allotments, a youth football club, a cricket team and several farms. Famous ex-residents include the racing driver

Robert Huff Robert "Rob" Peter Huff (born 25 December 1979) is a British racing driver currently competing in the British Touring Car Championship for Toyota Gazoo Racing UK. He was the 2012 World Touring Car Championship champion and the 2020 Scandinavi ...

, and the Nobel laureates Sir

John Sulston Sir John Edward Sulston (27 March 1942 – 6 March 2018) was a British biologist and academic who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on the cell lineage and genome of the worm ''Caenorhabditis elegans'' in 2002 with ...

(

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine () is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, acco ...

, 2002) and Sir

James Mirrlees Sir James Alexander Mirrlees (5 July 1936 – 29 August 2018) was a British economist and winner of the 1996 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He was knighted in the 1997 Birthday Honours. Early life and education Born in Minniga ...

(

Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (), commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics(), is an award in the field of economic sciences adminis ...

, 1996), both of whom died in 2018. From 1750 to 1755, John Berridge, the later evangelist, served as curate in Stapleford near Cambridge, riding out from Clare College. He performed his duties with "a sincere desire to do good". He preached and taught "the importance of sanctification". Yet, as Berridge later reflected, his ministry in Stapleford was fruitless because he neither believed nor preached the gospel of justification by faith. Because he believed that he was having "no beneficial effect, spiritual or moral" on his congregation, he resigned, later to become vicar of Everton, near Sandy. Stapleford is twinned with Villedomer, in the

Loire The Loire ( , , ; ; ; ; ) is the longest river in France and the 171st longest in the world. With a length of , it drains , more than a fifth of France's land, while its average discharge is only half that of the Rhône. It rises in the so ...

region of France. Stapleford is also twinned with

Nachingwea Nachingwea is a district in the Lindi Region of Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northea ...

, one of the six districts in the

Lindi Region Lindi Region (''Mkoa wa Lindi'' in Swahili language, Swahili) is one of Tanzania's 31 administrative Regions of Tanzania, regions. The region covers an area of . The region is comparable in size to the combined land area of the nation state of Sr ...

Tanzania Tanzania, officially the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in East Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It is bordered by Uganda to the northwest; Kenya to the northeast; the Indian Ocean to the east; Mozambique and Malawi to t ...

References

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