North and east of the village the land is flat, drained fen; to the south and southwest the Gog Magog Hills rise to over 200 feet (61 m).

The traditional parish boundaries follow the line of a Roman road and the Icknield Way to the southwest and southeast, Fleam Dyke – an ancient defensive earthwork – to the east, and the tributaries of Quy Water that drain to the River Cam.

The name has so far been traced back to 991 AD and is thought to derive from the Anglo-Saxon "Fugleburn" or "Fugolburna", meaning "stream frequented by waterfowl".

[5] At one time, the village had two ecclesiastical parishes with both churches in the same churchyard, separated by seven feet; All Saints, believed to be the earlier, and St.

Decorative features associated with the building that were above and beyond practical and utilitarian purposes indicate that the owners intended to impress their neighbours and emphasise their own importance.

By the late medieval/early post-medieval period, most, if not all, of the buildings at Hall Orchard, rather than being thatched, may have been covered in relatively expensive stone roofing tiles.

The monument was created by two artists: Andrew Tanser, a master carver and sculptor, and Andrea Bassil, a well-known children's author and illustrator.

A Roman cemetery containing up to 30 skeletons was discovered to the north of the village in 1874, along with an excavation variously identified as a limekiln and a tiled grave.

At Home End the originally 15th-century Old House had its hall reconstructed in the mid 17th century, soon after a parlour cross wing had been added, while at Ludlows, behind a Victorian front, was another early 15th-century hall with an original doorway and six-light window; its soller cross wing[clarification needed] comprised a parlour below and two chambers above.

At Flendyshe House, facing Ludlows where Home End widens into a small green, a rendered façade of c. 1807 covered an early 17th-century range with a rebuilt service wing to the rear.

During the 18th century a line of eight two- or three-bayed cottages, one dated 1735, were built on small crofts south-west of the village along the south side of Broad Green, so named by no later than 1460, where dwellings had been recorded by 1506.

Meanwhile, new farmhouses had been built on the former open fields to the south and west, including Bishop's Charity (c. 1833–5), Rectory (1827), Valley (by 1829), and New Shardelowes (1820 × 1835) Farms.

Another 35–45 lay in a ribbon along the west side of Hay Street, where two more elaborate terraces of brick cottages were put up in 1885 and 1903.

Planning restrictions confined them within the village's previous boundary: some new building was effected by infilling along the older streets, which had c. 280 dwellings by 1980 and were almost continuously built up by 1990.

Private building, beginning at the east end, where c. 160 houses went up in the 1950s, spread westwards along the south side of Pierce Lane, where c. 120 were built in the early 1950s and, after a pause 1965–75, 30 more in 1977–79.

Meanwhile, new council housing was concentrated on the south edge of the village, c. 50 dwellings rising in the 1950s east of the previously almost unoccupied Haggis Gap, while another 170 were put up to its west c. 1965–66.

The adjoining Coach and Horses, first kept by the squire's coachman, and the Harrow, in a 17th-century house, which closed respectively in 1902 and 1911, stood nearby along the main street.

Their clubrooms accommodated friendly societies such as a Lodge of Oddfellows set up in 1846, called the 'Loyal Townley' after the squire, and from the 1880s to the 1920s a branch of the Ancient Shepherds.

One of the last remaining pubs closed in 1990–91, leaving just the Baker's Arms (now the 'Hat and Rabbit') on the corner of Teversham road, the Six Bells (remodelled after fire damage its thatched roof in 1963 and again in 1985) and the White Hart.

Other fêtes included the regular celebration of Empire Day by the schoolchildren between 1907 and c. 1940, and others sponsored by the village Labour party from the 1920s.

The parish council, after hiring a recreation ground from the rector from 1897 to 1908, accepted in 1921 a larger one from the Townleys, south-east of the village; this was subsequently purchased in 1966 and the original pavilion replaced the following year.

A Conservative Club started in 1885 to attract the newly enfranchised labourers, which soon claimed 100 members, was active into the 20th century.

The National schoolroom was used as an 'Assembly Room' for entertainments from the 1880s until the squire, C. F. Townley, who liked amateur dramatics, built a well-equipped village hall in 1925.

The older station, regularly operated again thenceforth, was finally closed by 1989 when the site was sold for development; its listed grey brick main building was shortly converted for housing.

The Fleam Dyke station was then still in use; its steam machinery had been partly preserved as museum pieces when it was electrified and its tall chimney demolished c. 1976.

The civil parish contains additional housing located on the edge of Cherry Hinton, which itself falls within the Cambridge City boundary.

The Players celebrated their 70th anniversary in 2017, and perform three plays a year, in February, May and October to coincide with half-term weeks.

Proposals for significant additional housing to the north of the village after 2016 included in the current Structure Plan review have been vigorously fought by the Parish and District Councils.

Alice Goodman, the Anglican Rector of Fulbourn,[17] is a published poet, and was the librettist of the operas Nixon in China and The Death of Klinghoffer.

At the time of inclosure, those running south-east were mostly stopped up and replaced by a single straight road, while the western ones had their courses straightened.