Great Shelford is a village located approximately to the south of Cambridge, in Cambridgeshire, in eastern England. In 1850 Great Shelford parish contained bisected by the River Cam. The population in 1841 was 803 people. By 2001, this had grown to 3,949 and by the Census 2011 to 4,233. It was described as Britain's twenty-second richest village in 2011.
Great Shelford is twinned with Verneuil-en-Halatte, in the Oise département of France.
Services and culture
Great Shelford has a range of shops and services, including a wine merchant/bar, two public houses, two restaurants, a library, several estate agents, two barbers, a building society, a chemist, a dentist, a solicitor, an accountant, a delicatessen, a bakery and a garden centre. There is a monthly Farmers' Market. The villages of Great and Little Shelford are served by Shelford railway station on the West Anglia Main Line from Cambridge to London Liverpool Street. The old Great Shelford library was demolished and replaced by a new building which incorporates affordable housing by Bedfordshire Pilgrims Housing Association.
A large country house in the village was used for a concert named 'The Tea Set' in October 1965, which featured performances from Pink Floyd, Jokers Wild and Paul Simon. The same house was also used again in 1969 as the location for the cover art of Pink Floyd's album Ummagumma.
The Shelford Delicatessen features in a 2008 list by The Independent of The 50 Best Delicatessens in Britain.
Notable buildings
Parish church
The parish church of Saint Mary the Virgin has changed little since Thomas Patesle rebuilt it in 1307; he can be seen in a monumental brass in his vicar's robes on the chancel floor. The tower was rebuilt with the original materials after its collapse in 1798.
The church porch is two-storeyed with a splendid pelican in its fine vaulted roof, the doorway having an old niche with a Madonna. The spacious interior has tall arcades with medieval clerestories over them and heads between the arches, and eight fine oak angels look down from the hammerbeams of the roof. There is a 15th-century screen with tracery in the north aisle enclosing an altar in memory of a soldier killed on the Indian frontier; above the altar is a painting of two saints and a Roman soldier by the cross. The chancel stalls are carved with wild roses, the sedilia with grapes and acorns, and the reredos has a gleaming white sculpture of the Crucifixion with saints and angels under rich canopies. There are a few fragments of old glass, fragments of Norman carving set in a wall, and above the chancel arch a medieval painting of Doom, fading away.
Houses
De Freville Farm is a 16th-century timber-framed farmhouse with hall and cross wings. Oak Cottage is also 16th century and has a richly carved bressumer. Maris Farmhouse is a listed 16th-century cottage in half an acre of garden with a disused pump for the area. It is built from unsawn logs, with wattle and daub walls, and with the exterior rendered. The roof was originally thatched and was probably in the style of nearby properties.
History
Manors and families
Several great estates shared the two Shelfords, notably that of the de Freville family, whose manor house survives (and was resold in 2005) at Little Shelford, and who were there as early as 1300. But all appear to have generally had absentee landlords who sold copyhold lands and generally let others on long renewable leases. Farming survived at Great Shelford well into the 20th century. Several Yeoman families of note, the Deans, Howling, and Tunwell families, farmed here for centuries.
One example is Richard Tunwell (1645–1713) who acquired land at Great Shelford, his first acquisition being a mere of pasture, a copse and a close which was copyhold land belonging to the Bury manor. When Freville's Manor was purchased [as superior proprietor] by William Freeman in 1701, the lands in Great Shelford belonging to the Manor were described as of arable, and a half a rood of meadow, of pasture, a sheepwalk or liberty of foldage and fold course for six store ewes, all by then in the occupation of Richard Tunwell. The Manor also had of meadow in Little Shelford which again was occupied by Richard Tunwell. A rent roll of the Manor of Granhams dated 1708 shows that Tunwell and his sons held copyhold land from that Manor as well. From 1678 onwards, Richard Tunwell served as a Juror on the Bury Baron Court. By 1705, as a landed proprietor, he had qualified as a parliamentary voter and the Poll Book for the election held in that year shows that he voted for Sir Richard Cullen and John Bromley.