Only 4 miles south west of the university town of Cambridge by motorway or suburban road, these days Little Shelford is part of the dormitory villages of the city. Fortunately, though, a glimpse past the houses that make up the triangle of the village shows that it has not lost its rural personality. Crops have included corn, wheat, fruit and vegetables while sheep and cattle are grazed in the fields.

All of these farms used lots of rope, twine and sacking so the village once had a thriving rope making business run by the Gall family since the late eighteenth century. The laneway where long lengths of rope were twisted by hand early on, and then later by machine, still runs along behind the buildings in Church Street. Its name of Rope Walk reminds us of its past use.

The village was once a self contained community with grocery stores, bakers shops, butchers, a number of inns and a post office. These days all of these facilities have moved elsewhere. To fill the larder, villagers have to cross the Cam into Great Shelford or further field. Of the inns, only the Navigator is still in business serving Thai food as well as the usual ales. Asian food and fish and chips can be found in what was the Chequers Inn in the late nineteenth century.

The railway came to the area in the the early nineteenth century with a station just a short walk from the edge of the village, bringing with it the opportunity for diversified employment. The census of 1851 shows people from many other places who had come to Little Shelford to work for the railways, living as lodgers in the homes of village folk.

Some of the villagers who run Bed & Breakfasts still share their beautiful little corner of Cambridgeshire with outsiders.