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.

Independents' Day

A few years ago there was a report which said Cambridge was the ultimate 'clone town', characterised by having all the national and international chain stores and not much else. I don't know where they were looking!

Or rather I know exactly where they were looking! They were looking at the main street and new shopping arcade and ignoring all the specialist and independent shops which lie just off the beaten track.

As a guide to the area says "most of Cambridge is off the beaten track".

But not all of it. The photo above shows the entrance to the wonderful "Nomad", which sells craft items from all over the world. It stands right opposite King's College. 

And "When I was a kid" is right opposite Trinity College. Here are a few more shops and cafes I've pointed my camera at or into recently....

...a bunch of flowers?....

...a good book?...

...fancy a coffee?...

...or something stronger?...

...say cheeeeeese!

And when you've had enough of searching out the shops and coffee houses you can always visit the market square - fruit and veg, second hand books, clothes, bike repairs, CDs and vinyl, arts and crafts....open seven days a week.

And then there are always some buskers around and they are definitely independent and certainly not clones!

Or is that a clone creeping up behind? Only in Cambridge could someone wearing a top hat just wander, right on cue, into the background of a photo.


Take care.

Apologies, by the way, to those of you who 'tuned in' yesterday to "By Stargoose And Hanglands" only to find a post which was first published a few months ago. Gremlins in the system!

Denny Abbey And The Farmland Museum (2)

In the last post we looked at The World Of Work, now lets explore the shops and cottages of the 1940s.

The Village Shop

To be really like the old-time village shops I recall as a boy in the 1950s

 this one needs to be more cluttered and untidy.

 And I'm too young to remember Sparky's shop

 which was an earlier version of our village emporium.

 I was told by my father that Mr Sparks kept his paraffin (kerosene) tank in amongst the groceries and frequently had to climb over sacks and boxes to find the item he was looking for!

No health warnings on these beauties! 

Every town and many villages would have a brewery.

I spy with my little eye...something beginning with O.

Yes, Owbridge's Lung Tonic which was advertised to cure

“all affections of the chest, throat and lungs”.

Asthma? Pneumonia? Lung cancer?????  Really?

Advertising standards were not so strict in those days.

The Farmworker's Cottage

Standing right in among the farm buildings is what is described as 

"a farmworker's cottage".

If it was then it's rather larger than many but 

architecturally very much in the Fenland style,

quite plain with very little overhang of the eaves.

Perhaps a farm manager's or farm foreman's dwelling.

The parlour.

The living room / kitchen.

Upstairs in the main bedroom.

And the back garden, though vegetables would be more likely than flowers.

A family was also visiting the house while I was there and

the children appeared to be charmed by this house from a bygone era.

But I don't think they'd spotted that there was no TV

and certainly hadn't noticed the, erm, "facilities"

which were of the "bucket and chuck it" variety.

Take care.

Too Good To Pass By

A few more bits and bobs that I saw during bike rides and walks earlier in the year.

A well-laid hedge

Before the invention of barbed wire men toiled for endless hours during the winter months making hedges like the one above. The individual bushes of the hedge are cut almost through with a bill-hook and the branches are woven in and out to construct a stock-proof barrier. The hedge would continue to live and grow and also provided shelter for the animals during severe weather. For those of you who like to collect unusual and largely forgotten words, the strong leather gauntlets which were worn for the job were called "dannocks". My father spent many freezing hours at this thankless task.

How high?

If you're in the habit of inspecting old walls and stones you might have come across one of these mysterious marks. It's an Ordnance Survey bench-mark, an accurate measurement of the height above sea level of a particular point, all part of the minutely detailed and accurate work of mapping this country. If you're really interested in how the land was mapped then "Map Of A Nation" by Rebecca Hewitt should be on your reading list. It's a fascinating tale of the historical necessities which led to the map's creation and the obsessive madmen who undertook the mission. A glance at an old map tells me that the point above is precisely 59 feet above sea level. 

Have a "butcher's"!

The past use of this shop in St Ives is obvious for all to see, preserved in this lovely tiling. Well done, architects, for saving this shop front. Readers from outside Britain may not know that "having a butcher's" means "having a look". It's an example of Cockney rhyming slang - from "butcher's hook" = "look". 

The village pound

Most villages would have had one of these, a pound, where stray farm animals were penned in (impounded) till the owners came to collect them, usually after paying a small fee. This one is in Swaffham Prior, Cambridgeshire.

A model villager (or a village modeller).

These cheerful bits of craftsmanship were spotted in the village of Linton, brightening up, as well as individualising, an otherwise unremarkable house in a back street.

There was a church on top of the garage roof too!

Take care.

Oxfam Crazy!

In a recent post I noted that the Oxfam Shop in Cambridge's Mill Road was, shall we say, a little unusual. Care to take a look?

Take care.