2013 The Mill Road History Project started with a grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to fund a community project to record some of the history of Mill Road through research and interviews with long term residents.

2015 Capturing Cambridge website was launched with detailed reports on 10 buildings and sites along Mill Road along with a selection of Oral Histories.

2016 The Mill Road History Project concluded, spinning off into the Mill Road History Society, and the website was transferred to the Museum of Cambridge.

2017 With help from a grant from Cambridge City Council the Museum recruited community editors to manage areas of the website and add posts in locations other than Mill Road such as Queen Edith’s and Trumpington.

2018 Not for the last time, work is performed on the website behind the scenes as the number of locations on the map grows and the present scheme of projects, roads and buildings is created.

2019 The Sturton Town project is started with the participation of many of the residents of those streets

2023 The This is Our Street – Gwydir Street project starts

2025 The background map on the website is changed from Google Maps to MapTiler which meant it was now possible to use historical Ordnance Survey maps from 1901 and 1937.

2026 More improvements are coming…

Past Funding

The building and hosting of the original version of the website was funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. Since then the hosting fees have been paid for by the Museum of Cambridge and the maintenance and development of the site has been performed by volunteers.

Between 2016 and 2018 the Museum received grants from Cambridge City Council to run outreach projects under the Capturing Cambridge banner and since then several small projects have been funded – such as Lost Night & Love Songs: Celebrating 30 Years of The Junction and The Trials of Democracy – but the vast majority of what you see on the site has seen researched and uploaded by volunteers or received from members of the public who want to share their history.

Dear Visitor,

Thank you for exploring historical Cambridgeshire! We hope you enjoy your visit and, if you do,  would consider making a donation today.

Capturing Cambridge makes accessible thousands of photos and memories of Cambridge and its surrounding villages and towns. It is run by the Museum of Cambridge which, though 90 years old, is one of the most poorly publicly funded local history museums in the UK. It receives no core funding from local or central government nor from the University of Cambridge.

As a result, we are facing a crisis; we have no financial cushion – unlike many other museums in Cambridge – and are facing the need to drastically cut back our operations which could affect our ability to continue to run and develop this groundbreaking local history website.

If Capturing Cambridge matters to you, then the survival of the Museum of the Cambridge should matter as well. If you won’t support the preservation of your heritage, no-one else will! Your support is critical.

If you love Capturing Cambridge, and you are able to, we’d appreciate your support.

Every donation makes a world of difference.

Thank you,
Roger Lilley, Chair of Trustees
Museum of Cambridge