Early periods

Waterbeach is on the Car Dyke, a Roman waterway traceable as far as Lincoln.^[2] Archaeological work in 2020 found a seemingly Roman settlement on the north side of the village.^[3]

Waterbeach appears in the 1086 Domesday Book as Vtbech.^[4][5] In the 12th century, the Knights Templar occupied Denny Abbey to the north of the village.^[6] The Abbey structures and the area immediately surrounding it are protected as a scheduled monument. The core historic buildings of Denny Abbey are open to the public and managed by the Farmland Museum.^[7] Waterbeach Abbey and a stretch of the Car Dyke, both on the southern side of the village, are also scheduled monuments.^[8][9]

The attorney and parliamentarian John Yaxley acquired an estate at Waterbeach by 1610 and resided in the village. He and Edward Aungier of Cambridge bought the manors of Waterbeach and Causeway from the Crown for £900 in 1614.^[10]

RAF and British Army

A former Royal Air Force station, RAF Waterbeach, lies to the north of the village. Six aircraft hangars were built in 1940 and a triangle of hard runways completed in 1941. It housed some 2,600 people in the final months of the Second World War.^[11] Thereafter the station was run by RAF Transport Command and then by RAF Fighter Command until 1966, when it was transferred to the Royal Engineers and became Waterbeach Barracks, where the Waterbeach Military Heritage Museum opened in 1984. This was closed and the exhibits put into store in 2012, but in 2015 the museum returned and was officially reopened in 2017.^[12] The barracks themselves closed on 28 March 2013,^[13] after a move by all remaining units to RAF Kinloss in Scotland and to RAF Wittering in 2012–2013.^[14] The Cambridgeshire Army Cadet Force remains based in a corner of the old base.^[15] An industrial park now resides in the South West corner of the airfield at the junction of the A10 and Denny End Road. It is known as 'Sterling House'.

21st century

St John's Church

The population of Waterbeach has risen significantly since 2001, from 4,476 to some 5,500 in 2019.^[16] In 2018 it was designated a new town in the South Cambridgeshire Local Plan. The following year, permission came for the construction of 6,500 new dwellings. These are to be built on the site of the old barracks, and will more than double the population.^[17] In 2012 the Cambridge Innovation Park opened.^[18] The Innovation Park and adjacent Denny End Industrial Estate are major employment centres.^[19] In 2012 Milton Brewery moved from nearby Milton to a site at Denny End.^[20] Waterbeach Community Primary School was enlarged in 2020^[21] to cater for some 400 pupils.^[22]

The three places of worship are the Anglican Church of St John the Evangelist, a Baptist church famous for ties with Charles Haddon Spurgeon,^[23] and a corps of the Salvation Army. Active community groups include Scouts and Girl Guides, the Army Cadet Force, playgroups and a play scheme, and a Community Association. To the south-east is a Woodland Trust nature area, Cow Hollow Wood, laid out in 2000 to mark the Millennium.^[24]

Public art

In 1980, a village sign was made, as a memorial to the local doctor John Pritchard, who had been the village's GP for more than 20 years. The sign was designed by the artist Nan Youngman, who also lived in Waterbeach, and it was made by the blacksmith Richard Gowing's workshop in Soham, East Cambridgeshire.^[25]

Sources

• South Cambridge District Council Local Plan 2004
• GENUKI entry for Waterbeach