Lion Yard, Cambridge

1970s City Centre Arcade

A Brief history of Lion Yard

These dates and titles are of newspaper articles about the building of Lion Yard, taken from Mike Petty’s Lion Yard Chronicle

1970-12-28 Lion Yard work finally starts
1971-06-23 Lion Yard first level complete – view over site
1972-03-22 New Lion Yard car park takes shape
1972-06-05 Petty Cury, Cambridge, was closed to all vehicle traffic today
1972-06-27 Work on the second stage – the demolition of the southern side of Petty Cury and the building of shops and service roads on the Lion Yard – is already under way and is expected to take about two years.
1972-07-24 The Lion Yard multi-deck car park opens on Monday
1973-04-09 The Market Square ends of Guildhall Street and Peas Hill, Cambridge, were closed to traffic today as part of city council’s plans eventually to make much of the central area into a pedestrian precinct
1975 Official opening brochure
1975-09-17 approx Central Library opens
1975-12-04 Princess Anne officially opens
1977-07-23 The Mayor of Heidelberg opens rooftop gardens
1980-03-28 Cambridge’s new £1½ million magistrates’ courts above the Lion Yard multi-storey car park were officially opened by Prince Philip
1988-05-05 Lion Yard redevelopment history – 88 05 05b
1990-08-10 Lion Yard car park underground extension opened

Peter Soar photos

The photos below and a number of others of the Lion Yard area were taken by Peter Soar in 1971. You can see the full set of his photos at https://the-golden-fleece.co.uk/wp/lion-yard-cambridge/

Construction Site

You can see more photos of the construction on the Petty Cury page.

Inside the new Lion Yard

Further Reading

• • Lion Yard Official Website
  • Wikipedia Entry
  • Promotional Leaflet (2018) (PDF)
  • Cambridge Historic Core Appraisal – Lion Yard and The Grand Arcade (PDF)
  • The Lion Yard Cambridge – An Archaeological Desktop Study by Alison Dickens (PDF)