Cambourne
settlement and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England
Cambourne is a town and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England, in the district of South Cambridgeshire. It is a planned development and lies on the A428 road between Cambridge, 9 miles (14 km) to the east, and St Neots and Bedford to the west. It comprises the four areas of Great Cambourne, Lower Cambourne, Upper Cambourne, and West Cambourne. The area is close to Bourn Airfield.
Cambourne is the largest settlement in South Cambridgeshire, with a population of 12,350 in the 2021 UK census.
History
As part of plans to build thousands of new homes in the south-east of England, a new settlement on 400 hectares (990 acres) of former agricultural land, 9 miles (14 km) west of Cambridge, was considered in the late 1980s. In 1994, the Section 106 agreement from the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 was completed by the developers (McA), the local authority, Cambridgeshire County Council and the developers together with the landholders. The new settlement was to be constructed by three of Britain's larger builders of housing developments, Bovis Homes, Bryant Homes and Taylor Wimpey. Planning permission for the development at Monkfield Park was given in November 1996, and construction began in June 1998, on what was previously farmland.
In 2008, work began on building Upper Cambourne, with an original estimated completion date of 2012.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Cambourne” as settlement and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as settlement and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1028175. VIAF identifies the subject as 239242396. Authority coordinates are 52.218, -0.070. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2021, 1994, 1990 and 1996.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Cambourne”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Cambourne primary sources, Cambourne archive and Cambourne research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Cambourne”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Cambourne” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.