Coldham’s Common

History of Coldham's Common

Coldhams Common

“[One of my favourite spaces in Cambridge is] Coldhams Common; it’s been a godsend in lockdown”

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R Williamson in ‘The Plague in Cambridge’ (1956) refers to plague huts and pest houses, the earliest of which were put up on Midsummer Common, but by the time of the 1665-6 epidemic they were situated on Coldham’s Common.

The Stour, Coldham’s Common, R Farren 1881

Coldham’s Lane, R Farren 1881

The Town of Cambridge petitioned parliament to take in 40 acres of Coldham’s Common on which to erect pest-houses. The Bill did not pass and in 1703 the pest-houses previously erected on the common were taken down and the materials sold.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1034230/

‘Memories of Abbey and East Barnwell’ has some interesting comments about the history of the Common. Page 47: ‘The Common’, as Coldham’s Common was known locally, used to be a wonderful place for groups of kids to escape from the surrounding estates into the countryside … there was a lot of wildlife there. I can remember at the end of the 1950s that there were always skylarks overhead during the summer …. The most unusual feature of the common was the ‘Butts.’ [see 1927 map]. To a small child living in a very flat countryside, the Butts were like a great white chalky mountain – wonderful to climb up – and some of the climbs on the Barnwell Road side seemed very difficult when you were small. Then, having gained the dizzy height, there was an exhilarating slide, or roll, down again, to emerge covered in white chalky residue. Larger kids managed to drag old track-bikes to the peak and thrash down again….. The Butts was an old structure erected to catch bullets from a rifle range that once stretched across Coldham’s Common. We all knew this as kids, and there were twisted pieces of angle iron sticking out of the Butts, which must have once held targets. This knowledge led to another pastime: trying to find bullets by digging into the side of the Butts. A mangled 303-rifle bullet was quite a prize for a boy to find – but they were few and far between, having probably been already mined by an earlier generation.

Down Your Street, 1984, in the chapter on Ross Street, it is noted that it was after the rifle butts on Coldham’s Common that Ross Street got its name. Ross was the champion shot of England in 1861. The Cambridge Rifle Club was established in May 1959. Ross Street began as Volunteer Butts Row, then Rifle Butt Row and later Rifle Butt Road. It wasn’t name Ross Street until the late 1880s.

River Cam at Coldham’s Common (MoC73.57)

The University course on Coldham’s Common, just off the Newmarket Road, was established in 1875 by W T Linskill. Originally a nine-hole course it was eventually extended to 18-holes.

Map of proposed railway track across site of golf course on Coldham’s Common c.1890s

The prize meeting took place on Monday 15 November 1880 on the University Green, Coldham Common. Rain fell heavily all afternoon making play difficult.

Report of golf match on Coldham’s Common 1884

The course moved in the 1900s to Whitwell Hill, between Coton and Baton.

For more information see:

https://www.golfsmissinglinks.co.uk/index.php/england/central-east/cambs-hunts-a-peterborough/598-hunts-cambridge-university-golf-club

In the summers of 1969, 1970 and 1971, Coldham’s Common played host to a Free Festival.

Up till now its been the boast of the Phun City festival organisers that their festival was the first major free festival event in the UK (as opposed to the one day free concerts held in Hyde Park), well it seems like they have a rival and one that was intended to be free all along instead of mutating from a paying festival to a free bash due to adverse circumstances, which was what happened at Phun City (no one could get the fences erected in time). This was full year before Phun City too, so it was a real pioneer amongst free festivals.

This festival didn’t get much publicity but it had a hell of a good lineup and quite a few of these artists got to play too…

Continue reading at:
https://www.ukrockfestivals.com/cambridge-free-1969.html