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

A fragment of a wall painting on plaster, made for Captain Sparrow (1601–1651), at Park Farm, Hilton, probably around the time of his marriage in 1633, is now in the Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

The fragment depicts two figures representing the senses of Taste and Sight and was donated by David Garnett and his wife Angelica Bell of Hilton Hall, who were members of the Bloomsbury Group.

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

For Hilton, the highest tier of local government is Cambridgeshire County Council which has administrative buildings in Cambridge.

[6] Hilton is part of the electoral division of The Hemingfords and Fen Stanton [4] and is represented on the county council by one councillor.

With an entrance from the main village street, Hilton Hall is an English country house dating from the early 17th century, but much altered.

It has been suggested that the young Sparrow might have recut the maze on the site of an earlier one that had become indistinct from lack of maintenance.

The author was also part of the Bloomsbury Group,[10] which may explain why the city is chosen as a key place in his novel.