[1] Colne lies about 9 miles (14 km) east of Huntingdon; the villages of Bluntisham, Woodhurst, and Somersham are close by.

Colne is situated within Huntingdonshire which is a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire as well as being a historic county of England.

In 1085 William the Conqueror ordered that a survey should be carried out across his kingdom to discover who owned which parts and what it was worth.

[5] The Domesday Book does not explicitly detail the population of a place but it records that there was 18 households at Colne.

The Domesday Book uses a number of units of measure for areas of land that are now unfamiliar terms, such as hides and ploughlands.

[5] The tax assessment in the Domesday Book was known as geld or danegeld and was a type of land-tax based on the hide or ploughland.

A large medieval pond, as well as the remains of an 18th-century building, were found in an archaeological excavation at Manor Farm on East Street.

The team also found evidence of early to post-medieval pottery and a late medieval animal burial, as well as a 19th-century shoe.

[7] The historical quarrel between Thomas de Lisle, the Bishop of Ely and Blanche of Lancaster, daughter of Henry, Earl of Lancaster, and widow of Thomas Wake of Lidell, arose about property in the village.

[2] Drurys Manor existed to the east of the old church, but it was demolished circa 1787, and nothing remains of the original building.

A site to the west of the old church is likely to be the location of La Leghe Manor, destroyed at an earlier date.

A parish council is responsible for providing and maintaining a variety of local services including allotments and a cemetery; grass cutting and tree planting within public open spaces such as a village green or playing fields.

For Colne the highest tier of local government is Cambridgeshire County Council which has administration buildings in Cambridge.

[13] Colne is part of the electoral division of Somersham and Earith[11] and is represented on the county council by one councillor.

On 24 April 1896 the tower fell and destroyed much of the church – the chancel, the aisle walls and the porch were all that survived.

[2] The modern St Helens church was built in 1900 and is a Grade II listed building.