An Annotated  Map of Swaffham Prior Village

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A photocopy of this annotated map was given to me some time ago. I have no idea where it originally came from but it looks to have been part of a guide book to Swaffham Prior that was produced around 1987. It was obviously written by a long-term resident of the village and provides an excellent background to the town.

Click Here for an Enlarged Version

Key to the Map

1. Rogers Road: Once part of a drove leading from Lower End to Exning, the main local market before the plague. The part beyond Burwell Road has disappeared. Before the road was made up it was called 'Meeting Lane' - possibly because of a meeting house.

2. Farm buildings now demolished - had cows and a dairy and milk was delivered.

3. Cottages which once stood in what is now part of Rogers Road, and the almshouses opposite have been long demolished.

4. Blackfriars: It is not known whether these cottages were once used by the Dominican order of Blackfriars.

5. Zoar Chapel: Strict Baptist - now only infrequently used by a group of people who visit, in turn, a number or similar small chapels.

6. Sheldrick's Cottage (once 4 cottages): was once a garage with petrol pumps - closed in the early 1970s.

7. Yule House: Once a hardware shop (Sti.nson'5) which seems to have had a good paraffin trade; they had a horse drawn van delivering in the area. Later it was a butcher's shop, owned by Jack Hurrell who then moved the business to its present site in Burwell. More recently it was a carpet shop and store.

8.. Barns: Planning permission granted in 1987 for conversion into 4 dwellings.

9. Manor Farm: on the site of Shadworth Manor, owned for over 400 years (until 1925) by Queens' College, Cambridge.

10. Beech Terrace: Built in the early 1800s, the seven small cottages were demolished in the early 1970's and replaced by the spaced out modern bungalows of the present 'The Beeches'.

11. Corona: Once a dairy; cows were grazed on the land called the bridge on the Reach Road. The garden appears to have been dug out for clunch. During the war, brick buildings were added to increase the number of cowsheds, moor recently these were used as a garage workshop. The barns and workshop were demolished in 1987.

12. The White House: Included, at various tunes, a vet's surgery, a carrier's yard and a sweet shop. A room was also used during the war as a doctor's surgery once or twice a week.

13. The Gables: once two cottages, one lived in and one used as a workshop by shoemaker Bob Galley, more recently a vet's surgery until the 1970s.

14. Gutheridge Close: Until t-he 1960's there was a clunch wall bordering, the road. There, was a door in this wall adjacent to what is now a paddock. The Badcock family who lived across the road in 'Corona' used this to get to the meadow to hang out their washing. The meadow was a popular place for village children to play; the moat (now difficult to trace) was once used by them for swimming.

15. Most of these cottages have been demolished, some were shops selling such things as fish. and chips, sweets and fireworks.

16. Primrose Cottage (replaced two cottages) was used as a 'temporary' vicarage between the Old Vicarage and the new one in Greenhead Road.

17. The site of The Cow and Calf pub, which, after its closure, was used as a vet's surgery. Was mostly demolished in the 1920s.

18. Ivy Farm: Used to supply many Newmarket stables with straw - has been a Caravan Club site for many years.

19. Meadow House: once a general stores kept by Tom Cooper (an excellent photographer), who sold food, hardware, and, seemingly, everything else! He also hired out cycles. The shop was organised in sections with a separate till for each counter. More recently, used as an antique shop and an electronic workshop.

20. A carpenters and joiners yard. Mr Javens built farm carts etc., wheel hubs were turned on a foot treadle lathe using timber seasoned in the yard. He did all sorts of repairs and also cured hams and bacon over smouldering sawdust as well as being the village undertaker. Later this was carpenter Webb's yard - now a small garden centre.

21. Caxton Cottage; once the village workhouse but was sold off in 1836 when it was no longer needed.

22. The 'Railler': a private roadway used by many pedestrians - origin of name unknown.

23. Home Farm Barn: now converted into two dwellings.

24. Cottages now demolished; one had a coal yard owned by Cephos Misson who was a turf cutter and small holder. The middle one sold sweets (owned by Frank Hawkes who had a nasty habit of putting the names of anyone in debt to him in his window) and the other was once the Post Office run by Mrs Clark, Ted Milgate's grandmother. She' had the first telephone in the village. The middle shop was previously a barber's shop (Foulsher's/Foulsham's?)

25. Home or Stocks Farmhouse; almost derelict in the 1970s, restored when the barn was converted. The farm also had cows and sold milk In the village.

26. Village Green; there was a small green in the centre of the road junction and the Cage (cells) once stood here. Nearby Is the Village Sign, erected in 1986, carved by Ron Morris of Reach, unveiled by Cyril Rowlinson and funded by the Fenland Country Fair.

27. Ye Olde Inn House includes a vet's surgery and general stores cum post office. Jt was once the Rose and Crown pub which also had a shop, both entered through the same front door. There was an earlier pub here called The Harrow. After the Rose and Crown closed the premises included, for a time, a cafe and the yard was used for selling second-hand cars.

28. The Croft: once the White Hart pub, also a vet's surgery, more recently an Old English Sheepdog breeding kennel and a cattery. (Closed in 1977).

29. Old barns which have now been converted into a house incorporating the remains of an old lime kiln. The area was once used by Mr Willis as a coal merchant's yard. (He lived in the cottage on Mill Hill known as Sunnyside.)

30. A public footpath (invisible) which was once a busy drove between the village and Exning. Was used by people who worked in Newmarket until the early 1930s. The Parish Council at one time walked this path to ensure it would be kept as a public right of way.

31. One of the two windmills built in the mid 1800's - a post mill had" previously stood on the site. Owned and worked by Mr Galley until 1896, then bought-by Mr Poster, who owned the other mill. Last used in 1946, now being restored.

32. Mr Foster's Mill, now partly demolished. Possibility of permission to convert into a house.

33. Heath Road: referred to on all old maps and by all the elders of the village, as Swaffham Field Road - why the name was changed is not known.

34. Cottage used by Sam Day as a shoemaker.

35. The Pound containing the Cage and the Fire Engine. It may be that the gift of a fire engine by the Allix family caused the Cage to be removed from the Village Green to the present site so that a fire engine shed could be added. Restored in 1986.

36. The Fencock: once The Cock pub. May have got its name from the practice of keeping a horse (called a cock horse) to help coaches up a hill. Had a clubroom upstairs with a snooker table etc. The home of The Land and Plenty, a loan and social club until the 1940s. The Cock closed in 1970.

37. The Hall: on the site of what was probably the principal manor of Swaffham Prior. Part dating from the late 15th century.

38. The cottages at the side of the Bakehouse have been demolished.

39. The Bakehouse: now converted into a house (kitchen was once the oven) still owned by Mrs Lowe whose husband baked bread here until 1955, the business having previously been at map no 55. Bread was delivered in Burwell, Reach Wilbraham, Six Mile Bottom, Swaffham Bulbeck and round the village.

40. Granta House (so called because the owner, Herbert Lowe, was born in the Mill House on the river Granta in Granchester). Was the shop for Lowe's Bakery.

41. Town Close: (The Village Meadow) Once the scene of a large scale, three day fair for the Feast Day). Almshouses now demolished. The Youth Club, erected in 1985, is a reconstructed disused farm building.

42. Stables and barns (now converted into houses - won a design award), were used by Clem Wadham, agricultural contractor for his implements and machinery which included a threshing machine. A pony and governess cart 'taxi service' was based here whose customers included the famous cricketer Maharajah 'Ranji' of Nawangar, when a rather sick man, shooting on the estate.

43. Kent House - Clem Wadham's house part of which was used for brewing beer. Another building at the back was used as a fish and chip shop.

Nos. 44 to 71 will be placed here shortly....

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