Cheese Row, Newmarket Road

History of Cheese Row

Notes from Honour Ridout’s ‘ Cambridge and Stourbridge Fair’.

The Fair-goer who arrived from Cambridge in Georgian times was greeted with the aroma of cheese- lots of it. The cheese booths lined the south side of the main road as far as Garlic Row. The booths were smaller than all others in the Fair – a mere six feet wide – though one seller might have more than one booth…… the cheese came from all across the Midlands … there were even supplies from North Wiltshire at the end of the 18th cent…. the buyers were both individuals and wholesalers. the cheesemongers, who dealt in London, found the Fair very convenient.For their benefit, the prices per hundredweight were always quoted in the Cambridge Chronicle…. For many ordinary folk, who could afford little meat, cheese was a very large element of their diet…buying a large stock at Stourbridge made sense.