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44 Hills Road, ghost sign

44 Hills Road, Beach dairy (23)(21)

History of 44 Hills Road

1841

(21)

Joseph Walker, 48

Sarah, 47

Mary, 21,

Sarah, 19

Martha, 17,

Eliza, 13,

Agnes, 6,

Elizabeth Wallace, 70

William Murray, 20

1851

Robert Buckley Boyer, 21, undergraduate of Caius College, b Leics

Sarah, 30, b Sussex

Rebecca Morris, sister, annuitant, b Sussex

Robert B Boyer was admitted to Caius College in 1847. he became priest of St John’s Keswick in 1854. He was later the vicar of the Octagon Church in Wisbech. He was author of ‘Friends and Foes of Sailors’ and died in 1895 at Wisbech.

1861

(23)

Ann Rivett, 52, lodging housekeeper

Henry Boardman,19, china dealer’s clerk

Jane Panflim, servant, 14, housemaid

Elizabeth E Stevenson, boarder, 83, bookseller’s widow

Sarah M Turner, boarder, 69, woollen draper’s widow

1871

(23)

Eliza Mary Turner, widow, 80, consols, b Gloucs.

Mary C Ward, visitor, house rents, b Notts.

Sarah Porcher, 55, servant, b Norfolk

1881

(23 Hills Road)

William L Burgoyne, 28, furnishing salesman dealer, b Kingsbridge

Emily, 33, b Norfolk

Mary Moden, 16, servant, b Cherry Hinton

1891

William Withycombe, 47, draper’s buyer, b Somerset

Maria, 52, b Hants

Maud Maria, 21, b Chesterton

Charlotte M, 14, b Chesterton

Cecilia A, 13, b Chesterton

Alice Mabel, 12, b Chesterton

Sarah Maria Turner, 16, servant, b Cambs

1901

George H Sutton, 43,  b Suffolk, hotel bus driver

Mary E, 30, b Sutton

Maud A, 8, b Cambridge

George W Edwards, brother in law, 17, barman, b Sutton

Frederick G Webb, boarder, 32, coal merchant’s traveller, b Cambridge

Edith H Webb, boarder, 35, b Cambridge

1911

John Morris Bull, 41, dairy man, b Landbeach

Bertha, 41, b Waterbeach

Leslie Moriss, 15, b Cambridge

Stewart Todd, 10, b Cambridge

Percy Neville, 9, b Cambridge

Clara Hazel, servant, 15, b Willingham

1913

J M Bull, dairyman, Beach dairy

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1939: Dairy Shop

Stewart T Bull, b 1900, dairy farmer

Gwendoline V, b 1901

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Catherine Hall recalled in 2001 how when she lived in Shaftesbury Road she had Bull’s milk delivered. Mr Bull would proudly tell her  the milk came ‘straight from the ‘erds’, unlike the milk from the great rival the Co-op whose milk came from a depot. There were cattle opposite the houses in Shaftesbury Road. Mr Bull’s own cows grazed on pasture he rented in front of the Government offices there.

In 1941 a string of bombs were dropped over the city finishing up along Hills Road, very near Bull’s Dairy. Two people were killed nearby and the windows of the dairy were blown out.

The raid was on 24th February (Shrove Tuesday) 1941 whenGerman bombers flew in very low and made a concentrated attack on the section of Hills Road between the church and the war memorial. Ten were left dead, mainly at The Globe and Bull’s Dairy. An important consignment of tanks was being unloaded that night at the station and the precision of the attack has fuelled rumours ever since that the Germans had intelligence, possibly from the agent Jan Ter Braak who was known to have been operating in Cambridge at the time. At 11pm a 50kg high explosive bomb exploded on the roof of the sacristy; it blew a six foot hole in the roof and a similar sized hole in the wall of the Sacred Heart Chapel. (from Catholics in Cambridge ed.Rogers)

Bull’s dairy had another well known slogan: ‘You can whip our cream but you cannot beat our milk.’

Stewart Bull was a well known figure in Cambridge and became mayor from 1952-53. He lived above the shop with his children, John and Mary and his wife. He owned land out towards Waterbeach and sold its produce. The shop sold chiefly milk and cream. The dairy yard was reached through a gate around the corner in Russell Street behind the Co-op.

The dairy yard would have been a noisey place with the loading and washing of milk churns. Mr A George recalled in 2001 how he would watch the milking of the cows. This would take two hours by hand, starting at 5 am.  The hardest job was to wash the udders and sterilize everything. All utensils and bottles had to loaded into a steam cleaner.

Bull’s yard had two cats, a dog and a pony. The heard usually consisted of 25-30 cows. Before WWII they would probably have been borown and white shorthorns; these were replaced by Friesians in the 1950s.

(J Finch ‘Bulls’s Milk is Best’)

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Cambridge Evening News 16/1/1970

Ald. Stewart Todd Bull, a former mayor of Cambridge and former chair of the county council, died early today. He was 70. He was a businessman and was active in the city and county local government for nearly 40 years. His interests also extended to the River Cam Conservators – he was a former chairman – and to the Greater Ouse River Authority, of which he was a member for many years.

Alderman Bull lived at 129 Cambridge Road Great Shelford. His long and distinguished public service career began in the 1930s when he was elected to the then Cambridgeshire County Council, following in his father’s footsteps.…

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The Bulls Dairies sign on the wall of the building is a well known land mark. There is an interesting article about such ‘ghostsign’ restoration here:

http://www.ghostsigns.co.uk/2014/07/ghostsigns-restorations-in-cambridge.html

 

 

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