178 (79) Newmarket Road, Bell Inn, Cambridge

History of 178 Newmarket Road

C18: inn believed to have existed from at least this period.

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1851 Bell

William Gilbert, 47, butcher and publican

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1861 ? see no.80

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1871 (79)

George Barrell, 58, publican

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1881 The Bell Inn (79)

William Harmer, 36, publican

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1891 Bell Inn

Emily Harmer, 97, inn keeper

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1901 (79)

Emily Harmer, publican

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1909

Bell Inn, Newmarket Road — miniature rifle club, 25 September 1909
If the safety of England can be gauged by her miniature rifle clubs, then England must be safe indeed. Everywhere these little societies of keen shots have been springing up like mushrooms and nowhere has been more prolific than Cambridge. The latest club meets at the Bell Inn, Newmarket Road and already has a membership of 50. They would learn not only to hit the bull’s eye at practice, but in times of dire necessity to shoot straight at other targets and so keep their land intact in case of invasion. CWN 09 09 25 p3
Credit: Mike Petty, Cambridge Newmarket Road Scrapbook 1897 to 1990, entry 1909 09 25.

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1913 Bell Inn

Mrs Florence Tabor

Mrs E J Harmer

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1962 –

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1963

Enid Porter records in Cambridgeshire Customs and Folklore p223f how, in 1963, two 14 year old boys brought to the Cambridge Folk Museum two pieces of decaying wood that they had picked up in an outbuilding behind the Bell public house. The inn had by then been pulled down; the pieces of wood had markings on.

Most likely it was a table top used for the game of Merelles or Nine Men’s Morris.

It is known that the Bell Inn existed in the C18; it had a small entertainments room with stage and gallery, in which concerts were given until early in the C20.