Lost Cambridge

Following on from my previous blogpost, this one looks at the villages surrounding Cambridge in the then expanded South Cambridgeshire District The South Cambridgeshire District we are familiar with today is a relatively recent creation – only getting up and running in 1974 following the overhaul of local government by Sir Edward Heath’s Conservative Government. … More Anglian Water’s ban on housing development in South Cambridgeshire – 1974

If this is not a warning from history, I don’t know what is. Before I begin, for those of you willing/able to help support me in my various pieces of work on Cambridge town’s history and reporting on contemporary issues, please feel free to help feed the Town Owl (inspired by the owl sat next … More Anglian Water’s embargo on all new house building – 1974-78

It’s at St John the Evangelist Church Hall, Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 8RN, at 2.15 p.m Free to members, guests £2.00 Advanced notice for this event which I’ve also posted on FB here should you want to add it to your calendars. Free to members, guests £2.00 (Annual membership starts at only £8 a year! … More Cambridgeshire Association for Local History – book awards on 03 June 2023

The soft launch of Celebrating Cambridge Women demonstrated how local history can be brought to the stage This is what the stage at the Cambridge Corn Exchange looked like Above-Left – Cathy Dunbar as Eqlantyne Jebb, and above-right with Simone Chalkley as Louisa Wilkins (Eglantyne’s elder sister who pioneered the Women’s Land Army) Photographs: Matt … More The women who made modern Cambridge – on stage

Stuart Orme of the Cromwell Museum in Huntingdon presented to a packed out St John’s Church Hall on Hills Road for the Cambridgeshire Association for Local History. Even though the Lord Protector was our MP for nine years, much of his history is told not by museums in Cambridge, but in Huntingdon (where he grew … More The real Oliver Cromwell – MP for Cambridge 1640-49

It has been over a decade since the once-mighty Cambridge Conservatives produced a manifesto of any real substance. It was written in the run up to the General Election 2010 in the final days of Gordon Brown’s Government that was struggling with the fallout of the Banking Crisis 2008, and the inevitable institutional fatigue that … More The Cambridge Conservatives’ Manifesto for 2010 – a look at some contemporary political history

The use of words and language is in a different league to today, from a time when the local newspapers were much more politically partisan. This from the Cambridge Independent Press of 04 Feb 1860, via the British Newspaper Archive “This long talked of banquet, given by the Conservative Club, came off at the Lion … More Conservative banquet flops – the Liberal-supporting Cambridge Independent reported with glee! 1860

Another one of Mike Petty’s finds, it now resides in the Institute of Criminology Library Store. Above – from the University of Cambridge’s online catalogue. It would be ***wonderful*** if someone could digitise and transcribe his diaries for us town people to read – only Governor Edis did lock up several of our less-law-abiding predecessors … More John Edis’ Prison Guv’nor diaries returned to Cambridge – 1968