Cambridgeshire
Click Oliver Cromwell (who once lived here) to go to contents list.
A personal view
by Philip Grosset
Mr E. Venditti came from Italy in 1951. He worked at Harrison's basket-making factory until it closed down in the 1970s. He was 81 in 2005, and until recently was still making and selling his own baskets alongside his house in Ramsey Road. The oddity about all this is that any basket-maker managed to survive so long in the face of all the cheap imports! But, as he points out, his handles don't fall off ....
Market Hill (as well as The Broadway and The Waits) are closed to ordinary traffic once a year during the three day St Ives Michaelmas Fair held every October. Seen in the background is the Golden Lion Hotel. This was once an old coaching inn. It used to have a restaurant called Bart's, named after the comedian Eric Morecombe (whose real name was Eric Bartholomew) who once owned it. There's a very unlikely story that the place is haunted by the ghost of Oliver Cromwell's mistress....
These are two adjoining houses in Harris Crescent, Needingworth, which used to be decorated like this every Christmas. People came from miles around to see them, and contributed thousands of pounds to charity. This photo was taken in December 2001. This particular display has now been discontinued.
These submerged trees in Marsh Lane, just outside St Ives, make a strange and eerie sight. To see them, take the road from St Ives towards the A14. Marsh Lane is on the right, past the Total filling station and the motel, and signposted The Hemingfords. The lakes are just a little way along it, through the undergrowth on the left.
A local technical term? Spotted in May 2002 during renovation work at The Anglers Rest, a one time boarding house for anglers by the river near the parish church. The words have now disappeared!
"NOBLES FIELD For the Recreation of the Townspeople of St Ives" is what it says. Water skiing perhaps?
These were the floods in November 2000. Usually it is a large field with the river flowing just beyond the tree in the left background.
An unusually decorated shop on The Waits. The tiled bull on the front, and the name H Anderson down the right edge, date back to when it was a butcher's shop, originally founded in the 1880s. The shop shown here subsequently moved elsewhere.
This large signboard advertises a shop in Foundry Walk, the little alley leading from Market Hill to Bridge Street.
This was part of the old police station in Priory Road, just past Nuts Bistro (that once housed part of the National School). It is now used as offices. It was built in 1845 and was in use until 1973 when a new police station was opened in Pig Lane.
The address of Pig Lane caused a lot of ribaldry so this part of the road was hurriedly renamed Broad Leas.
The Victoria Monument on The Broadway. A local brewer was so impressed by a jubilee monument on the Isle of Wight that he ordered a replica for St Ives. By the time it was erected, Queen Victoria had died, so Mr Odams decided to present it to the town on the date of her son's coronation. But Edward VII developed appendicitis, so the memorial was not actually unveiled until 30th June 1902. The wrong date can still be seen carved on it.
Quite often original frontages have survived above ground level so it is always worth looking up at them.
The All Saints Church tower can be seen in the background.
The people of St Ives always had minds of their own. In 1745, the town raised a volunteer force to join one raised in Huntingdon to fight Bonnie Prince Charlie. They moved north but only got as far as Abbots Ripton, then the two groups fought each other - and returned home!