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The Spotted Cow, Northampton Street and former Northampton Boot Stores and entrance to Kettle's Yard
Kettle’s Yard, 1904 (photo F J Allen)
1881:
2. John Lowe, 35, coal porter, b Girton
3. James Gigney, 33, brewer’s labourer unemployed, b Cambridge
4. unoccupied
5. Martha Pilsworth, 48, laundress, b Abington
6. Sarah Thompson, 55, laundress
7. Henry Rogers, 36, brewer’s labourer out of employment, b Cambridge
8. Ann Rogers, 78, none, b Haslingfield
9. William Chapman, 62, brickmaker, b Cambridge
10. William George, 62, shoemaker, b Cambridge
11. Charles Langford, 43, general labourer, b Cambridge
12. Samuel R George, 25, bricklayer’s labourer out of work, b Cambridge
13. William A Haydock, 29, stableman, b Cambridge
14. Anne Hines, 54, washerwoman,
15. Thomas W Chapman, 28, brickmaker out of work, b Cambridge
16. John Wolfe, brickmaker’s labourer, b Cambridge
17. William H Cook, 43, bricklayer’s labourer, b Cambridge
18. James Crook, 46, groom, b Cambridge
19. Mary Collis, 52, washerwoman, b Cottenham
20. Robert Wright, 35, shoemaker, b Cambridge
21. Sarah A Levett, 35, dressmaker, b Bury St Edmunds
22. Caroline Hall, 38, college servant, b Cambridge
23. Jonas Burling, 39, fossil dig labourer, b Over
24. John Blackwell, 48, brewer’s man, b St Ives
25. Mary A Lowe, 60, laundress, b St Ives
26. Jacob Wolfe, 52, fossil dig labourer [coprolite], b Harlton
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1913:
1-2. Samuel Frost
3. Charles Garner, labourer
5. Sam Wolfe, billiard maker
6.
7. George Crook, gardener
8. William Chapman
9. James Game, chimney sweep
10. William Hammond
houses closed
17. Miss Adelaide Westley Clarke
18. Miss Mary Ann Crook
19. Mrs H Haylock
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1941:
Kettles Yard in 1941 by G Strickland
Kettles Yard, 1941 (photo G Strickland)
Commentary by Mike Petty in Fenland History Facebook Group: By 1941 a shop had opened but the Spotted Cow and several properties had been cleared though four small cottages at the Castle Street end considered by Cambridge Preservation Society to be capable of conversion were allowed to remain standing. They were bought by Jim Ede in 1957 and form the nucleus of the Kettle’s Yard gallery. The rest were demolished for old folk’s flats which opened in 1956 and won a Civic Trust Award. St Peter’s Church had to be underpinned in 1932 to stop it falling down. It was declared redundant in 1958 and is now cared for by The Churches Conservation Trust. As old properties were replaced by new houses the landlords demanded higher rents that the former residents could not afford, driving them out and reducing the trade of pubs and shopkeepers.
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1957:
Jim Ede bought the four tiny condemned slum dwellings, the remaining buildings of Kettle’s Yard.
Kettles Yard demolition (MoC P28)
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In 1981 George Hatton (3 Albion Row) recalled the games children used to play – tops and whips, roller skating and skipping on the slop from Kettle’s Yard to Northampton Street. He remembered the sign visible in a photograph warning drivers to drive slowly as they approached the Northampton Street Castle Street crossroads.
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