Good Days

I may not be able to get out on the long walks that I enjoy, but I can still totter down to my local community woodland to see the snowdrops - at least on my good days!

There's not much I can tell you about snowdrops that I haven't covered in previous years. Just enjoy!

I came across this old photograph the other day while looking for something else entirely...

This is the office and sales room of J H Cooper & Sons in Cambridge. All swept aside now in the name of progress, but for over a 100 years the place where the canny people of the town went to buy their furniture. Mention that you needed a bed or an armchair in conversation and someone would always say, "Well, if you ask me, you can't beat Coopers". That seemed to be the only advertising they had.

Armed with that advice you'd make your way to Newmarket Road. "Yes, sir, we can supply a two seat settee instead of the larger model". "Might I suggest a slightly darker shade, sir, you'll find it won't show any marks". "We can usually have it ready in about four weeks, but some of the men will be on holiday at this time of year, so shall we say six weeks?" It arrived in three weeks.

I'm sitting on one of Mr Cooper's armchairs right now!

In order to add "unbeatable value" to this blogpost we'll finish with a little music.

Back in the 1990s I spent my holidays as a walks leader, taking groups through some of the best scenery that England and Wales has to offer. One of the places I went most frequently was the Brecon Beacons National Park (now officially Bannau Brycheiniog) in S Wales. You only occasionally heard Welsh spoken in the town of Brecon, except on market days when all the farmers and their wives drove in from the hills. Here's a piece of descriptive acoustic guitar music, from the great John James, about this resilient group of people....

Reminds me of a sunny day when I stood on the slopes of Fan Nedd watching the sheep being gathered on the other side of the valley.

Take care.

Frontages

I got rather carried away photographing the various shop fronts along Mill Road. As you'll see, many nations of the world are represented and there's plenty of competition to sell you a bicycle! It was a Sunday afternoon so the street was relatively quiet - during the week the traffic (vehicular and pedestrian) makes it difficult to get clear views across the street.

Take care.

Cambridge's Forgotten Heritage

If we'd walked here a couple of hundred years ago we'd be on a narrow track passing between fields on our way to the village of Cherry Hinton. We'd have passed a windmill that would eventually give this busy modern road its name - Mill Road. Things started to change when the railway reached Cambridge and this land was used for cheap housing for those who worked on the railway and in its associated industries. 

You might think that no one would want to live in these small, cramped houses today and that the shops here would not survive in this modern world. Maybe it's time to tear it all down and start again. But you'd be wrong on several counts.

These houses are some of the most expensive in the city - in terms of price per square foot at least. Although they were very cramped for the large families of the Victorian era, they are now snapped up by young professionals who value their nearness to the city centre and the vibrant multi-cultural atmosphere. They also support many of the small alternative shops and international cafes and restaurants along Mill Road.

However, although the future of this historic area looks healthy for the time being, there are problems with some of the public buildings. You see, there are only four listed buildings in this whole area. So while some buildings, like St Barnabas Church (above) are protected by planning laws, there are many others which are part of our history but have no such protection.

There are a number of industrial buildings like George Bolton's Warehouse which are surely worth keeping as part of the cityscape. Bolton moved to Cambridge from Hertfordshire in the mid 1800s, initially to work as a porter on the railway but soon set up in business as a general carrier (someone who took goods from the railway station to their intended destinations). Bolton and his sons expanded into building and owning a brickworks, but they were mainly known as furniture removers. The warehouse was used for storing furniture and is now converted to offices.

This fine red-brick building, on the corner of Mill Road and Gwydir Street, was once the public library. It was used for 20 years by the Hindu community as a place of worship until they were unable to fund the necessary repairs. The city council plan make the building some kind of community centre once it's been repaired.

The building above however now provides a mixture of accommodation for elderly people. But for many years it was Cambridge's maternity hospital. Wikipedia will tell you that Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy was born here, though it doesn't mention that I first saw the light of day there just a few months later. Its original purpose, when it was built in 1838, was as the Cambridge Union Workhouse to house the poor of the town.

Above the door of this building it says "Lifecraft", which is the name of a user-led organisation to help those with mental health problems. But above that it says "The Bath House" and that's what it was built as in 1927. It provided baths for those whose homes lacked the necessary facilities and, perhaps surprisingly, it still operated into the 1960s.

Right down at the far end of Mill Road we find Brookfields Hospital. This was built as a Hospital for Infectious Diseases from 1885. At the time "germ theory" was not fully understood and most diseases were thought to be caused by "bad air". For this reason it was built at the eastern edge of the town so that the miasma was not blown back into the town.

This building looks a bit sick and neglected too. It's known as The Romsey Town Labour Club and reminds us of a time when this area of Cambridge was nicknamed Little Russia because of the strong left-wing views of many of the people here; the union movement being very strong amongst those employed on the railway and its affiliated industries. These workers lacked funds but had many expert builders among them and the Labour Club was built entirely by voluntary labour. The beautifully carved crest above the door, presumably the work of one of Cambridge's many stone-masons, shows all the different tools used by the craftsmen who worked on the building.

The man responsible for much of the organisation of the Club was Billy Briggs, a local man who had left school at the age of fifteen to work on the railways. He held all kinds of voluntary and political posts and reckoned he knew everyone in Cambridge. He went on to become Cambridge's first Labour mayor. He was a man of firm opinions and demanded that there should be a bar in the Club so workers could get a drink after a hard day's labour. There were many Working Men's Clubs set up around this time, but Romsey Labour Club was perhaps unique in that it always allowed women to join too - you've guessed it, it was at the insistence of Billy Briggs. How sad that this building is so neglected.

Just along the road, the Conservative Salisbury Club is also in need of a facelift, though it is still an active club with snooker and pool tables as well as a function room.

I could go on, for there are many more interesting buildings of similar vintage along the length of Mill Road and its many side turnings. Above is the old Dales Brewery building which seems to be thriving as an antiques shop and a coffee bar. But are there any new buildings being built round here?

Yes, indeed. The golden dome is Cambridge's new mosque which now stands proudly near the far end of Mill Road. You can visit it at any time when prayers are not in progress and I intend to take a tour there later in the year. 


Take care.

A Cambridge Alphabet

I've been trying to sort out some of my photos lately and came across several of Cambridge which I rather liked. Many of these appeared in the early days of this blog and won't have been seen before by many of you. So here's the Cambridge Alphabet...

C is for Colleges...

The University has to be included but there's no U in the word C-A-M-B-R-I-D-G-E so "Colleges" it is. Not the most obvious one to show, but this is Peterhouse which is the oldest of them all, founded in 1284. 

A is for Antiquities...

There are also all sorts of old buildings in Cambridge which are nothing to do with the University. The little church of St Peter's is not the oldest church in the city, but it must be one of the prettiest.

M is for Market...

Right in the centre of Cambridge there's a daily market where you can buy all sorts of things, though the prices might have gone up a bit since I took this shot!

B is for Bikes...

It seems that everyone in Cambridge has a bike. It's not a fitness thing, or an environmental consideration - it's just the easiest way to get around.

R is for River...

The River Cam gives Cambridge its name - and that bridge gives Bridge Street its name! Punting on the river was a big part of my teenage years as I lived then at Grantchester, a couple of miles upstream.

I is for Innovation...

I could have shown you Independent shops or Inns as there are plenty of those (though not so many as there used to be). But it would be wrong to ignore the innovative hi-tech scientific work that is carried out by the University and many modern companies that have grown up around it. These are some of the buildings on the Biomedical Campus which stands next to Addenbrooke's Hospital.

D is for Diversity...

All kinds of diverse communities intermingle in various parts of Cambridge. This is the poorer part of town, around Mill Road, where just about every religion and nation of the world must be represented. The University of course also attracts scholars of all kinds and there are also many language schools dotted around.

G is for Gardens...

As well as the Botanic Gardens, that feature regularly on this blog, there are also beautiful gardens belonging to most of the colleges and many public parks. No doubt we'll be visiting some of them during 2020.

E is for Entertainers...

Cambridge has a tolerant attitude towards buskers and during summer some very skilled musicians can be seen playing for passing change. These are Fernando's Kitchen who were a regular fixture a few years back.

Of course it's not all perfect by any means. I could have included Congestion (as in the gridlocked streets during the evening rush-hour), Expensive housing and, most shamefully, Rough sleeping as there are many homeless people on the streets in recent years. But it's still my home city and somewhere that we'll dip into from time to time during the coming year; there's a lot of things I've never shown on the blog and some that are well-worth having another look at.


Take care.

Mill Road Movers And Shakers

The annual winter fair took place in Cambridge's Mill Road at the weekend and I went along as I do most years. All along the length of the road there were food stalls and craft stalls; brass bands, rock bands, folk bands and buskers; morris dancers; guided walks; artists and poets; churches handing out free mince pies; samba bands leading parades; Father Christmas and....well you name it. But how could I photograph it a little differently and capture some of the colour and movement?

The rapid hands of Arco Iris Samba Band

Slow shutter speeds blurring the movement was my tentative answer. As you'll see some worked better than others - and as you won't see many were miserable failures!

The local Fire Brigade were manually pulling one of their fire engines

through the street

The University's Lion Dance Troop

One problem I hadn't anticipated was that, though the performers could be blurred nicely, those watching were static, and this distracted from the action. A lot of tinkering of the computer solved the problem for the shot above.

Cambridge Morris Men

Morris dancers proved unexpectedly tricky to photograph in this way.

The dancers of Ely And Littleport Riot

The colourful dancers above required an enormous amount of work on the computer to give any sort of image: interesting but not what I'd envisaged.

Arco Iris 

The samba band, Arco Iris, gave their usual colourful and extrovert performance which I hope is conveyed by the pictures above and below.

I also got several useable shots of the parade....

I didn't catch who was responsible for the vibrant carnival parade and I can't find any mention of them on the Winter Fair website. You get used to these unexpected happenings on Mill Road!

Colonel Spanky's Love Ensemble

Bands with unlikely names were everywhere - Release The Chimps, The Galapagogos, Jason and the Skagonauts, Shake Your Tailfeather, Ember Rev, Fruity Clave and of course Colonel Spanky, all provided musical entertainment.

I tried to capture the chaos of the crowded streets and just snapped a few slow, blurry shots as I walked along. I rather like the impressionistic feel of this one, with just one face showing clearly through the patterns.

And finally......

These gentlemen are not for blurring!

(For a more literal interpretation of the Winter Fair see my earlier posts here, here and here).

Take care.