History | Fen Time Tunnel DAYS GONE BY IN THE FENSCENE AREA…
Left: Chivers of Histon started making jam in 1873
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world’s tricycle record and present holder of the 24 hours’ Eastern Counties’ tricycle record, covered the splendid distance of 192 miles in twelve hours. For over 60 miles he had to struggle with a dead head wind which blew with tremendous strength across the open fenland. Fenland, 1912
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FRUIT HARVEST Histon was renowned for its fruit and Cambridge folk, both town and gown, would walk to the village to procure it. During a glut year in 1873 Chivers started making jam and this became an important part of the economy. Histon, 1890s
FEN DWELLER The clerk to the Ely Guardians applied for the removal of Tabitha Camm, an eccentric old woman aged 72 years who is living in a tumbled-down old hovel in Littleport fen. The place was filthy in the extreme. She has lived there all her life and she tenaciously sticks to it. PC King said the walls were tumbling down and the bricks had no mortar between them. The lady is independent in every sense of the word and would-be sympathisers are quickly ordered to decamp. Littleport, 1897
RECORD BREAKER Mr A.G. Markham, the ex- holder of the 100 miles’
FLOODS IMPACT Serious floods, river bank gives way between Waterbeach and Upware, worst in living memory, men cradging on Stretham bank and Old West. One cause is clearing of streams above Cambridge last summer and accumulation in the river-beds below. Stretham, 1919
STEEPLE CHAPS
Steeple-jacks: a good many who thought they possessed all the faculties of a steeplejack endeavoured to scale the lofty church spire on Sunday morning in the same way as the steeple-jacks who are now at work repairing the steeple. They all reached the chalks safely – by steps from inside the church. Stretham, 1928
IMMORAL EARNINGS
A woman was summoned for allowing a barn at Fen Ditton to be used for immoral purposes. She had converted it into a dance hall, teas were advertised and dances held. Det-Sgt Willis said he looked through the window and observed people
inside. Some of the women attending were known to be of an undesirable character and the men mostly members of the University. The girls were dancing by themselves down the centre of the room holding up their dresses; another girl got on top of the piano and danced. Couples frequently left and went to a nearby cottage. Fen Ditton, 1930s
NEW DRAINAGE ERA The drainage of the fens moved into a new era with the opening at Upware of a fully automatic electric pump. Lord Fairhaven pressed a simple button to start it in motion. Upware, 1957
Above: More than 30 years ago, locals were celebrating a local planning victory.
Above: Locals feared the loss of a favourite rural pub.
Above: Localsl f fearedth he loss
LAST ORDERS The Railway Tavern, Shippea Hill, is threatened
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Mike Petty indexing newspapers, 2012
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WILBURTON CELEBRATES Wilburton church bells rang out to celebrate a victory over property developers who want to turn the tiny fenland village into a vast new township.
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Wilburton, 1988
For more than 20 years, Cambridgeshire historian, Mike Petty, has been compiling A Cambridgeshire Scrapbook 1897 to 1990. It comprises over 3,000 pages and more than 20,000 fascinating facts, features and (occasional) fallacies reported in Cambridge newspapers. It is arranged week by week putting local events in the context. It is free to read, free to download, free to use. Just search ‘Cambridgeshire Scrapbook’ on your computer or tablet.
https://archive.org/details/ CambridgeshireScrapbook18971990
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with closure by Watney Mann and the regulars are upset. The older men got to thinking back about the pub’s previous owners. It was Steward and Patterson’s, then Ely Ales, then East Anglian Breweries, then Watney’s, then it was Truemans and then Watney’s again. Shippea Hill, 1977
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