Great Chesterford

Great Chesterford railway station is on the West Anglia Main Line serving the village of Great Chesterford in Essex, England. It is 45 miles 56 chains (73.5 km) down the line from London Liverpool Street and is situated between Audley End and Whittlesford Parkway stations. Its three-letter station code is GRC. The station and all trains calling are operated by Greater Anglia. The station was once the point where the Newmarket Railway left the London to Cambridge main line. This route was authorised in 1846, opened on 3 January 1848 for goods and to passengers three days later. The Newmarket branch was an early victim of poor finance leading to closure: it was temporarily closed on 30 June 1850 and reopened on 9 September 1850, but the section between Great Chesterford and Six Mile Bottom was closed permanently on 9 October 1851 with the opening of the direct line between Six Mile Bottom and Cambridge. The next station to the north of Great Chesterford was Bourne Bridge.

Little Chesterford is a small village and civil parish in Uttlesford, Essex, in the East of England. Close to the Cambridgeshire border, it is built principally along a single sunken lane to the east of a chalk stream tributary of the River Cam or Granta and is located 1 km southeast of Great Chesterford and some 5 km northwest of Saffron Walden. The small hamlet of Springwell is just to the south of the village. Up the hill to the east is Chesterford Park, with a mid-19th-century mansion in a 250-acre (approx. 100 hectare) estate and now a science park called Chesterford Research Park. The wide and relatively deep valley of the river Cam provides a rolling landscape of chalky boulder clay with extensive and wide views. The surrounding farmland is mostly in intensive arable use and except for areas alongside the river, some of which is liable to flooding, is classified as being of grade 2 quality.The grouping of church, manor house and village hall form the heart of the village. The church of St Mary dates from the early 13th century and retains much of its original form, having a long aisleless nave and chancel under a single roof. The main furnishings of interest are the simple 15th century screen, the recently restored monument of James Walsingham (1728) – an early work by Henry Cheere – and the monumental brass to George and Isabel Langham (1462). The church was restored during the 19th century including the addition of a vestry and the building of a bell-cot for two bells at the west end.The manor also dates from the 13th century and is one of the earliest inhabited houses in Essex. It was built in three separate phases – a mid to late-13th century timber-framed aisled hall, flanked by a slightly later solar wing, and an earlier (early-13th century) and extremely rare stone survival in Essex that was converted into a services wing. It now has the form of a classic H-shaped manorial house and retains much of the original stone and woodwork.Amongst other buildings of interest, the former school was built in 1862 for 24 children, but was closed by 1902. The building (a typical example of a Victorian school) was used as the Sunday school and now serves as the village hall. Opposite is a 16th-century hall house, later floored, the cross-passage blocked by a fireplace but with the frame of the original front door exposed. There are more timber-framed and plastered houses up the village towards the Saffron Walden road. A small brick bridge over the Cam, built in 1791 to replace an earlier sixteenth century one, forms the village's western boundary.

The Wellcome Sanger Institute, previously known as The Sanger Centre and Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, is a non-profit British genomics and genetics research institute, primarily funded by the Wellcome Trust.It is located on the Wellcome Genome Campus by the village of Hinxton, outside Cambridge. It shares this location with the European Bioinformatics Institute. It was established in 1992 and named after double Nobel laureate Frederick Sanger. It was conceived as a large scale DNA sequencing centre to participate in the Human Genome Project, and went on to make the largest single contribution to the gold standard sequence of the human genome. From its inception the institute established and has maintained a policy of data sharing, and does much of its research in collaboration. Since 2000, the institute expanded its mission to understand "the role of genetics in health and disease". The institute now employs around 900 people and engages in five main areas of research: Cancer, Ageing and Somatic Mutation; Cellular Genetics; Human Genetics; Parasite and Microbes; and the Tree of Life.

St Mary Magdalene Church is the Church of England parish church in the village of Ickleton in Cambridgeshire. The church is a Grade I listed building. Its parish is part of a combined benefice with those of St Peter's, Duxford and SS Mary and John, Hinxton.

The Wellcome Genome Campus is a scientific research campus built in the grounds of Hinxton Hall, Hinxton in Cambridgeshire, England.

Hinxton is a village in South Cambridgeshire, England. The River Cam runs through the village, as does the Cambridge to Liverpool Street railway, though the village has no station. Hinxton parish's southern boundaries form the border between Cambridgeshire and Essex. The village is five miles (8 km) north-west of Saffron Walden and nine miles (14 km) south of Cambridge. The 2001 population was 315.Hinxton is the home of the Wellcome Genome Campus, which includes the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the European Bioinformatics Institute.

Ickleton is a village and civil parish about 9 miles (14 km) south of Cambridge in Cambridgeshire, England. The village is beside the River Cam, close to where a southern branch of the Icknield Way crossed the river. The eastern and southern boundaries of the parish form part of the county boundary with Essex, and the Essex town of Saffron Walden is only about 4.5 miles (7 km) southeast of the village. The village is mainly grouped around three streets: Abbey Street, Frogge Street, and Church Street, which leads into Brookhampton Street. The village is at the eastern end of its parish, which extends 2 miles (3 km) to the west.

St Mary and St John Church is a Church of England parish church in the village of Hinxton in Cambridgeshire. It is a medieval flint and rubble church in the early-English style. It consists of a chancel, nave, south aisle, south chapel, south porch and a western tower with lead-covered spire that contains a clock and two bells that were first hung in 1903. The chancel and nave date from around 1200, while the south aisle and chapel are 14th-century, the latter being built by bequest of Thomas Skelton whose memorial is in the church. Other parts of the grade II* listed building are between 15th and 19th centuries.The first record of a church on the site dates from 1092 when the local sheriff Picot of Cambridge granted it to what later became Barnwell Priory in Cambridge.In 1930 the vicarage was joined with that of neighbouring Ickleton, though resentment among locals resulted in the decision being reversed in 1955. The advowson has been in the possession of Jesus College, Cambridge since 1558. It is now part of a combined benefice with St Peter's, Duxford and St Mary Magdalene Church, Ickleton.

Ickleton Priory was a Benedictine priory of nuns at Ickleton, Cambridgeshire, England. It was established in the middle of the 12th century and suppressed in the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536.The priory's dedicatee was Saint Mary Magdalene.

Littlebury is a village and civil parish in the Uttlesford district, north-west Essex, England. The village is approximately a mile and a half from the market town of Saffron Walden, 12 miles (20 km) south from Cambridge, the nearest city, and 23 miles (37 km) north-east from the county town and city of Chelmsford. The parish of Littlebury includes the village of Littlebury Green and the hamlets of Catmere End and Chapel Green at the west, and parts of the estate of Audley End at the southeast. The parish had a population of 869 at the 2011 census.

Hanley Grange is the name given to an eco-town planned for land north of Hinxton in South Cambridgeshire. Initial proposals for 8,000 homes rising to 12,800 homes were published. The site proposed to be developed is on Grade 2 agricultural land, owned in part by a development company, Jarrow Investments, which works closely with supermarket giant Tesco.

Brent Ditch is generally assumed to be an Anglo-Saxon earthwork in Southern Cambridgeshire, England, built around the 6th and 7th Centuries . However most of its structure has been lost over time. The site is scheduled as an ancient monument by Historic England.2 km (~1mile) in length it runs from Pampisford Hall in the North-West to Abington in the South-East. For most of its length it is wooded and it is on private land and so difficult to access. It was built as a defensive structure to control the flow of trade along ancient routes. In modern times it is bisected by the routes of the old and new A11. It is from the old single carriageway road (grid reference TL514474) that the structure is best viewed as a low ditch in a wooded area besides the road. The earth works at this point are 2 to 3 m high. The dyke is one of the smaller earthworks of several in south Cambridgeshire designed to control movement along the ancient Roman roads. The others are Devil's Dyke, Fleam Dyke and Bran Ditch. Black Ditches, Cavenham is a fifth earthwork guarding the ancient Icknield Way and can be found in Suffolk north west of Bury St Edmunds