Sun path Cambridge: sunrise, sunset and the sun's height by month (2026)

Last checked: 23 October 2026. Written by the Flatwalk team.

Short answer. On 21 December the noon sun over Cambridge's flat skyline reaches about 14°, and on 21 June about 61°. Its shortest day, 7h 42m long, runs from 8:06 to 15:48 GMT; its longest, 16h 46m, from 4:38 to 21:24 BST. The winter sun crosses from the southeast (129°) to the southwest (231°), the summer sun from the northeast (48°) to the northwest (312°). Give a south facing window an open view and it holds the sun from sunrise to sunset in December; turn it to the north and there is no direct sun.

See the sun at your own window

Cambridge's sun by month

Cambridge's times are worked out for the city centre (52.21° N, 0.12° E) on the 15th of each month of 2026, and shown as clock times. Directions are bearings counted from true north, which puts east, south and west at 90°, 180° and 270°. Out in Chesterton or Cherry Hinton they shift by about a minute.

BST covers 29 March 2026 to 25 October 2026, and the April to October rows fall inside it. Due south and at its highest, the sun sits at 11:57 GMT on 21 December and 13:01 BST on 21 June; the noon height in the table is that top point over a flat horizon.

Cambridge compared with London

Against central London, Cambridge is 0.7° of latitude further north and 0.2° of longitude further east, and the northern move does most of the work. Its 21 December has 7 minutes less daylight than London's, its 21 June 8 minutes more. By the clock, the winter sun rises 3 minutes later and sets 5 minutes earlier, and the June sun rises 5 minutes earlier and sets 3 minutes later. The shortest day's noon sun is 0.7° lower (14.4° against 15.1°). Going north shortens winter days and lengthens summer ones, going east brings sunrise and sunset earlier on the clock by about 4 minutes per degree, and together they explain why Cambridge's winter afternoons end a little sooner than London's.

Hours of sun on each side of a flat in Cambridge

Set out by compass direction, these are the most hours of direct sun a window could get if the horizon were flat and nothing stood in front. The level country around Cambridge makes that horizon a fair guess, yet it is still an open-sky maximum: buildings, trees and a balcony above all take a share, and the biggest share in winter, with the sun low.

What the Cambridge numbers come down to:

• Winter is a south-side season. On 21 December the whole of the daylight (7 h 40 min) lands on a south window; east and west get about 3 h 50 min each, and north nothing.
• Summer spreads the sun round. As the June sun rises and sets far into the north, south-east and south-west reach 10 h 10 min, more than south's 9 h 25 min, and north itself gets 7 h 25 min at the start and end of the day.
• Spring equinox, east to west. With sunrise and sunset almost exactly east and west around 21 March, the north side manages only 15 min.

Treat that as the top of the range; the sun tool's job is to take away whatever your own street blocks.

What it means for flats in Cambridge

Cambridge has one big advantage for sun: it is flat. With no hills on the horizon, the open-sky figures above come nearer to real life here than in most cities, and what counts is how wide the sky is in front of you rather than any slope. The centre is low-rise, built around college courts, and many homes are Victorian terraces off Mill Road and in Romsey, some of them split into flats, where the houses opposite are low too. Even so, a narrow court or a tight terraced street can shade a ground floor window in December, when the sun climbs only about 14°.

• Best direction. Winter sun goes to main windows or a balcony between south-east and south-west. Mornings belong to east, evenings to west, and north offers steady light with direct sun only on summer mornings and evenings.
• Best floor. Five-storey blocks are not the Cambridge norm, but they show the worst case well. With the noon sun at just about 14° on 21 December, one 15 m (49 ft) tall throws a shadow about 58 m (192 ft) long, 2.9 times the width of a 20 m (66 ft) street from wall to wall, leaving the facade opposite in midday shade up to about 9.9 m. That leaves storeys 1 to 3 (ground floor first as storey 1, 3 m apiece) without midday sun on the shortest day, with storey 4 the lowest to be reached. On 21 March the shadow is down to about 19 m, which falls short of the buildings opposite, so every floor sees the noon sun.
• Balcony shade. A balcony overhead does more shading in summer than in winter: the June sun at about 61° drops steeply onto it, while the low 14° sun gets underneath. Choose a west balcony and the sun stays on it to the end of the day, which in June is after 21:00.
• Garden shadow. A house 6 m to the eaves throws a shadow about 23 m long at noon on 21 December, always on its north side at that hour. Owners of a north facing garden feel it most, since the strip by the back door may see little midwinter sun; with a garden to the south, look instead at the fence, trees and houses beyond it. On a June noon, by contrast, it reaches only about 3 m from the back wall.

Check your own window in Cambridge in 3 steps

Flat ground makes the model's job simpler, but it still needs your street: Sun at your window, free in Flatwalk, counts a real window's hours of direct sun with the buildings, trees and ground around it. The outlines of Cambridge's buildings are there, their measured heights not yet, because so far only London, Manchester, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Glasgow have those. So the heights here are estimates, and the tool says as much. Something off? is the fix: correct a building opposite that looks too tall or too low, and add big trees the map has missed.

1. Type, then find. Start under "See the sun at your window": type the address, spot the building among the terraces and courts on the satellite map, then decide between A whole house and A flat (with Your floor for a flat).
2. Windows on walls. The tags tell you which wall is which, for instance "South wall · sun side"; tap a wall, then tap the window's place or drag along the wall to draw it.
3. Read the hours. Choose See my sun. For December, the hardest month, pick Shortest day and work through the hours of direct sun, the 12 month bars and "What takes your sun". Typical weather switches the hours to ones with the usual clouds.

What it cannot tell you

• Calculated, not measured on site. Your hours come out of a calculation, maps plus the sun's position, and no instrument is ever placed at the window.
• Height is an estimate here. Cambridge is not yet one of the measured cities named above, so every height you see is a map estimate; check any building that matters to you.
• Fresh building work and felled trees. New houses on the city's edge, or trees planted or cut down since about 2017 to 2019, may be wrong or absent if they came after the map data; Something off? fixes that, whether it is a height, a building or a tree.
• Clouds on average. The cloud in Typical weather comes from a 2005 to 2023 monthly average rather than a forecast, so it can be out by about 10 to 15% for a window.
• Not gardens or roofs. Only windows are measured; the lawn, a terrace floor and any roof you have in mind for solar panels are left out.
• Not a surveyor's report. Its numbers carry no legal weight: it is not a legal or certified report, and a right to light survey is something else entirely.
• Small print it skips. Window frames and tinted glass do not count, nor does your own roof's shape, and an outline drawn on the map can be out by a metre from the real wall.

Try it free: your Cambridge address, your floor, your window

What Flatwalk does that older planners skip

Lamps for dark evenings

Sunset on 21 December comes at 15:48, so evenings are long: try ceiling lights, lamps and LED strips and find where the rooms need them after dark.

Your Cambridge street in 3D

Type the address and the street and nearby buildings are built in 3D around you, where the map has them.

Sunshine for the exact address

Pick any date and hour and see the real sun in the plan, with the direct-sun time worked out room by room.

One sofa, true to size

Hold the phone up to the room, live, or use a photo of it, and a sofa sits on your own floor at true size before it ever arrives.

Every detail

Every window and door has its proper type, and the kitchen, wardrobes and bathroom are assembled piece by piece, as in a real fit-out.

Thumb on the hour

One finger on the timeline is enough: slide it and the sun crosses the flat.

Swipe for more. Every picture is the app itself.

One flat, free

Questions people ask

What is the sun path in Cambridge? In winter the arc is low: sunrise in the southeast, about 14° up in the south at midday on 21 December, sunset in the southwest. Summer reverses the picture, with a high arc from the northeast, about 61° up at midday on 21 June, to the northwest. Between the two, on about 21 March and 23 September, the flat Cambridge horizon shows it rising almost due east and setting almost due west.

What time is sunrise and sunset in Cambridge in December? On 21 December 2026 Cambridge has 7h 42m of daylight, with sunrise at 8:06 and sunset at 15:48 GMT. Sunset is earliest in mid-December, about 15:46, and sunrise latest at the end of December, about 8:08.

Where does the sun rise and set in Cambridge? Anywhere in town, from the Backs to Mill Road, the bearings are the same: in midwinter, sunrise about 129° (southeast) and sunset about 231° (southwest); in midsummer, sunrise about 48° (northeast) and sunset about 312° (northwest).

Which way should my flat face in Cambridge? Anywhere from south-east to south-west gives the most sun across a year, particularly in winter. West is for people in during the evenings, east for early risers. Low as Cambridge mostly is, check the building opposite too: on the shortest day a five-storey block over a 20 m street keeps the bottom three floors from the midday sun.

How high is the sun in Cambridge in winter? Not far above the rooftops: the noon sun reaches only about 14° on 21 December, and no more than about 19° at any point from mid-November to mid-January. Any building across the street that stands more than 14° above your window, measured from where you sit, hides it at midday.