This article from the British Newspaper Archive here which I’ve transcribed below shows the assessment Alfred Waterhouse gave to Cambridge Borough Council on the designs submitted for the Cambridge Corn Exchange. The old Corn Exchange – which later became a garage, a club, a car park and now is where a corporate hotel built in the 1980s now resides, is shown below.
The old Corn Exchange in a dilapidated state in the mid-20th Century. Cambs Collection.
Prior to the decision to move to the Wheeler Street site and build something huge, there were plans for an expanded exchange which I stumbled across in the Cambridgeshire Collection. The full file is in the collection which you’ll need to visit, but here are a couple of photos from the unexecuted designs.
Personally I think we could have taken the design and built it elsewhere in the city!
But as it was, the borough council chose to go with a building that will be celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2025. Alfred Waterhouse’s contribution is as below. Which reminds me – I’ll need to go into the County Archives for the minutes of this meeting to see if the original designs of John Edlin’s proposals still exist. He was the architect behind Cintra House on Hills Road. It puts all of the other office blocks on that road to shame.
THE PROPOSED NEW CORN EXCHANGE. .
“The following reports, which have been printed and circulated amongst the members of the council, were taken as read:— To the Council of the Borough of Cambridge.
The Market Committee beg to report having resolution on the 15th April, 1869, agreed to erect a Corn Exchange on the Wheeler Street site, the Committee procured plans from architects of local connexion and repute, which were open to public inspection for several months.
On the 9th November, 1869, the Committee requested Mr. [Alfred] Waterhouse, the eminent architect, who is erecting various collegiate buildings in the University, to inspect, report, and recommend for adoption, such plan thereon as thought best. The Committee herewith submit copy communication on the subject.
The Committee will be glad to have the instructions the Council that the building may be at once proceeded with the carrying out the plan necessitates the absorption of the “Haunch Mutton” premises, the Committee will glad to have authority to purchase the unexpired term now existing therein.
- Charles Balls – Mayor
- J.R. Mann
- Elliot Smith
- Charles Bayes
- Arthur John Gray
- J. Brown
Guildhall, 31 Dec 1869.
To Edmond Foster, Esq., Town Clerk of Cambridge
“Sir,—l to report that, in accordance with the instructions with which was favored [note US spelling], I have carefully examined the Designs submitted by six competitors for the proposed New Corn Exchange.
“Though each design seems tome to have some one or more good points of its own to recommend it, I consider that, on the whole, the designs of Mr. John Edlin and Mr. R. R. Rowe possess the greatest merit.
“Mr. Edlin’s design is in the Greco-Italian style, somewhat similar to that so much in vogue in German Railway Stations. Its simplicity, its inexpensive detail, its business-like appearance and fitness for its purpose, and its varied skyline are all, as it seems to me, specially commendable points.
“The Exchange itself rectangular on plan, giving about 9,500 square feet of floor space; [or 883 square metres – the design they went with is 476 square meters] the roof is supported by a double row iron columns, dividing the building into what may be termed a nave and side aisles. There are no galleries.
“The room is lit principally by continuous skylight along the centre of the roof of the nave. This, it seems to me, might prove scarcely adequate to the special requirements of the case; but this defect, if it be one, might be easily remedied by merely increasing the width of the space devoted to glass on either side of the roof, no structural alteration whatever being needful.
“There are, in this design, no side-lights, except in the gables in the centre of each front, rising above the general line of eaves; each of these is emphasised by a 3-light window. In the centre the roof rises a lantern, of wooden construction, square on plan with a dormer on each of its sides.
“Internally the semi-circular roof of the nave has a pleasing effect. Abundant ventilation is provided by a clear story. The Exchange is set back 60 feet from Wheeler Street, so that there good space left for shops in front. These are well arranged in Mr. Edlin’s design, the unoccupied space at the back, which is larger and more compact than in most of the designs, approached by Parson’s Court, twelve feet wide. From this court a side entrance is secured to the Exchange, in addition to the two other entrances, the principal one from Wheeler Street, and one of somewhat meagre character out of Corn Exchange Street.
“I venture to think the walls of the buildings would be all the better if half-a-brick thicker. My impression is that this design would prove by far the least expensive to carry out of any submitted to you, and that it could satisfactorily erected for the sum named,— £4,000.
“Mr. Rowe’s design, a Gothic one, is, in my opinion, in point of elevation, the most attractive one submitted, at any rate so far the main building is concerned. It is pleasing in outline : the ornamentation is not redundant, and the treatment of the walls is good, both within and without, especially the arrangement of the buttresses internally from which spring the roof-principals. It proposed to erect the walls in white brick with a certain intermixture of red brick the arches, which are all either round or segmental in form. Polychromy also sparingly introduced in other ways.
“Mr. Rowe submits three schemes, all rectangular on plan; The first preserves the “Haunch of Mutton” and the land behind it intact; the second preserves the inn, but not the land behind it; and the third, like all the rest of the designs, preserves the land behind, or a certain portion of it, but absorbs the inn. This plan (C) seems to me decidedly the l>est of the three submitted by Mr. Rowe; it gives nearly 11,000 square fleet of floor space. Mr. Rowe has, in my opinion, erred somewhat in an opposite direction to Mr. Edlin, by glazing too large a portion his roof. The windows, too, on Mr. Mortlock’s side of the building are objectionable and surely not needful for light.
“There is no approach in this plan to the spare ground at the back; and the shops in front would be somewhat poor, as the Exchange comes within 22 feet of Wheeler Street. The otherwise pleasing effect of the interior is, I think, somewhat marred by the diagonal ties of the circular-ribbed principals—which again are disconnected with the tie-beams of the king-post principals above.
“The two sets retiring rooms seem quite satisfactory in their arrangements, and the vestibules are good. This design would cost, believe, nearly 50 per cent, more than Mr. Edlin’s.
“Mr. Fawcett’s design, though on the whole it is not equal in my opinion to either of the two already described, I think worthy of special mention. It gives 12,000 square feet of floor space, in an irregular or wedge-shape plan. It is gothic in character, and has two rows of columns down the centre of the room. The plan is an ‘engenious’ one, and all the light in the central roof is obtained from the North. This would have the advantage of excluding strong sunshine and securing a steady light. There is very little unoccupied ground left in this design, and there are windows on Mr. Mortlock’s side which are not wanted.
“A gallery surrounds the room and there are offices under. The cost would higher than that of Mr. Edlin’s design, but this is partly accounted for by the circumstance that Mr. Fawcett provides cellars below the principal room, which were not contemplated either by Mr. Edlin or Mr. Rowe.
“It will perhaps hardly be necessary for me to report particularly as to the three remaining designs; but any further information the Committee may desire shall be happy to supply, if it is in my power to do so. I may add that, possibly from some misunderstanding of the verbal instructions given, all the competitors do not appear to have worked on precisely the same basis. It is true that all have shewn Corn Exchange Street 24 feet wide, as requested, but all have not shewn an approach from Parson’s Court to the unoccupied land at the back, and some have not shewn Parson’s Court increased to minimum width of 12 feet, as I understand they should have done.
“I am, Sir, your faithful Servant,
Alfred Waterhouse”
Lost Cambridge 