Date/Time
Date(s) - 7 December 2019
12:00 pm - 2:00 pm

What: History talk by Helen Weinstein about the Ironworks Community History Project and our Exhibition at the Museum of Cambridge. Plus help before/after for those located in a property in the Mill Road area to look up your House History or History of your Business from the 1840s to now!

Where: St Barnabas Old School House, St Barnabas Road, (located opp the Lloyds Bank former car park)

When: 12 noon to 2 pm Mill Road History Society Helpers alongside Helen to show you how to look up the History of your House or Business, using old maps, the census, trade directories, newspaper articles.

In this talk, Helen Weinstein, will be showing the Ironworks Blue Plaque project and inviting the audience to share stories, objects, photos, letters, diaries, for our upcoming exhibition at the Museum of Cambridge. The story starts with the coming of the Eagle Foundry to the area by the railway line after the market fire of 1846, the selling of the land plots by Mr Sturton the Chemist. This foundry and the landowning story explains the early days of how big industry, the IronWorks run by the Headleys came to the neighbourhood but also explains why the area became known as Sturton Town. Helen will share adverts found in the Cambridge Newspapers from the 1870s and 1880s advertising plots of lands for sale for housing, sold by Mr Sturton. Helen will go on to show some of the Blue Plaque stories of the early inhabitants of businesses like the brewers John and Margarita Dippold, and the shop-keeper Sarah Scarr who sold fancy drapery and toys on the corner of Hooper Street employing a network of dressmakers in nearby houses.

Helen will end the talk sharing some of the objects and photos and letters pledged by local residents to display in our upcoming Museum of Cambridge exhibit because Helen is asking people if they have objects or photos or stories about the area they may be able to lend for this co-curation project – examples of objects donated thus far are a family sewing sampler from Gwydir Cottages – and Victorian beer bottles found in the gardens on Kingston Street, – evidence of the School House for Infants hidden behind Sturton Street, – old photos of the Kerridge construction company in the 1970s, – and the fascinating letters from Austin Chapple, humorist and musical entertainer negotiating his fees for concerts and music hall appearances in the region! What building, object, letter, diary, photo, garden plant or tree has a memory for you about your home, business, or street?