Saxon Street is a hamlet in Woodditton parish, strung out along the Newmarket to Kirtling road on a level hilltop at around 115 metres. It grew up around two greens, Saxon great green and Saxon little green, which measured 2¾ and 1½ acres when they were enclosed. The road climbs to the hilltop and drops away again in a hollow way on both sides, and the straggle of houses along it eventually became known as Saxon Street.
How the hamlet filled in
The Victoria County History records cottages and outbuildings creeping onto the road and greens in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, which explains the uneven building line you still see. The bigger change came after 1933, when Newmarket Rural District Council began building council houses. By 1960 it had built 44 across the parish, and the new houses pushed Saxon Street southwards along Kirtling Road.
So the hamlet today is a mix of older cottages and mid-century houses. Those council-built homes often have room behind them for a rear extension or a new kitchen, and older properties tend to need sympathetic maintenance and repair.
Gault brick, flint and slate
The best known building here is Syde House, a Grade II listed farmhouse of the mid to late 19th century, built of gault brick under a slate roof with sixteen-paned sash windows. Next to it, 29 and 31 The Street, a pair of cottages in flint with gault brick dressings, were added to Cambridgeshire’s local heritage list in 2024 as part of the Syde House farmstead group. Matching that pale gault brick and flint is the sort of detail that makes new work look settled.
Ground and planning
Up on the plateau the ground is boulder clay, which the county history describes as heavy and prone to holding surface water. Foundations and drainage need thought on any new build here. Planning applications go to East Cambridgeshire District Council, and the parish is not on its list of conservation areas, though listed buildings carry their own controls.
A&F Building Services has not completed a published project in Saxon Street. Our nearest case studies are a few miles away in Newmarket, among them a gabled dormer in farmhouse pantiles.
