Shudy Camps

The parish of Shudy Camps lies 12 miles south-east of Cambridge and was, until about the 14th century, known as Little Camps.{{Citation needed|date=April 2021}} It is probable that settlement in the area began in small clearings in the woodland.{{Cite web|title=Parishes: Shudy Camps {{!}} British History Online|url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/cambs/vol6/pp49-59|access-date=2021-04-16|website=www.british-history.ac.uk}} 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”.{{Cite web|title=ESAH - ESAH Transactions|url=http://esah1852.org.uk/research/transactions|access-date=2021-04-16|website=esah1852.org.uk|language=en-gb}} 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.{{Citation needed|date=April 2021}}

Camp derives from Latin campus ('field') and usually denoted an enclosed piece of land. Shudy may derive from Middle English schudde ('shed').{{Cite book|last=Ekwall|first=Eilert|title=The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names|publisher=Oxford (Clarendon Press)|year=1940|pages=80}}

St Mary’s Church (CoE) is one of 5 parishes in the Linton Team Ministry (Linton, Bartlow, Castle Camps, Horseheath 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 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 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.

Now (as of 2024,) apart from still being used as a church the building is also used for a charity Bake sale, harvest super, and Christmas celebrations.

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• [http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/1D7AFF7D-12E8-4431-B2B7-B9F289D02025/0/ShudyCamps.pdf 2001 census profile]
• [https://shudycamps.org.uk/town-history/ Shudy Camps Parish Council Website]
• [https://shudycamps.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Walks-Around-Shudy-Camps.pdf Walks in and around Shudy Camps by Roger Lemon]

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Category:Villages in Cambridgeshire

Category:Civil parishes in Cambridgeshire

Category:South Cambridgeshire District

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