It has a population of just 56 people
Driving down the A1 you would quite easily miss the turning for the quiet and tiny village of Diddington. Cambridgeshire’s smallest village is an absolute gem despite not really having much there.
It sits directly next to the busy dual carriageway and covers only 526 hectares. According to the Office for National Statistics, it had a population of just 56 people in 2016. This makes it one of the smallest villages in Cambridgeshire.
In fact, it’s so small that it doesn’t even appear on TripAdvisor! That’s probably due to the fact that it only has a church and village hall, which doesn’t really account for much tourism.
Its main attraction is its local church, the parish Church of St Lawrence. Unlike many other churches in the county, this tiny little village church has the original 13th-century font still present.
For most of the 20th century, it wasn’t even used as a village. During the Second World War, it housed prisoners of war and was used as a transit camp, then it became home to the 49th American Station Hospital, the second largest American hospital in England.
After the war, it became a Polish Resettlement Camp for displaced people and remained home to a large Polish community until the late 1950s. For such a small place, it has a very fascinating and diverse history.
Today, it is home to people who love the Cambridgeshire countryside and the quiet life. Surrounded by acres of fields, it is visited mainly by dog walkers who want to let their dogs roam free through the beautiful landscape.