Little Gidding
village in Cambridgeshire, England
Little Gidding is a small village and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England. It lies approximately 9 miles (14 km) northwest of Huntingdon, near Sawtry, within Huntingdonshire, which is a district of Cambridgeshire as well as a historic county.
A small parish of 724 acres (293 hectares), Little Gidding recorded a population of 22 in the 1991 British Census. With the neighbouring villages of Great Gidding (where the population was in 2011 included) and Steeple Gidding, the total population was 362 in 2001. The driving distance between Little Gidding and Cambridge, to the southeast, is 30 miles.
St John's Church, the Church of England parish church, is a Grade I listed building.
Little Gidding was the home of a small Anglican religious community established in 1626 by Nicholas Ferrar, two of his siblings and their extended families. It was founded around strict adherence to Christian worship in accordance with the Book of Common Prayer and the High Church heritage of the Church of England. Charles I visited Little Gidding three times. The community continued for 20 years after Ferrar's death, until after the deaths of his brother and sister in 1657.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Little Gidding” is village in Cambridgeshire, England. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Little, Gidding and village, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “village in Cambridgeshire, England” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q776709. The first chronological checks are 1991, 2011, 2001 and 1626.
A single description cannot reconcile every naming convention, rebuilding phase or administrative transfer associated with a place. 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
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Little Gidding”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Little Gidding primary sources, Little Gidding archive and Little 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 “Little Gidding”?
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- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Little Gidding” 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.