[2] A 12th century church dedicated to St Mary was demolished in 1962 due to dwindling population and the deteriorating fabric of the building.

[3][4] 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.

[7] The Domesday Book does not explicitly detail the population of a place but it records that there was 14 households at Woolley.

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

In different parts of the country, these were terms for the area of land that a team of eight oxen could plough in a single season and are equivalent to 120 acres (49 hectares); this was the amount of land that was considered to be sufficient to support a single family.

[7] 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.

[7] The church is not mentioned in the Domesday Survey of 1086, but the Romanesque stone chevrons built into the south nave wall suggest the existence of a building here in the 12th century.

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

[14] Cambridgeshire County Council consists of 69 councillors representing 60 electoral divisions.

[15] Woolley is part of the electoral division of Sawtry and Ellington[13] and is represented on the county council by one councillor.