20 (6) Shelly Row

History of 20 Shelley Row

The Edward Storey Foundation built these houses in 1844. Nos 17 to 25 (9 -1) Mount Pleasant were built for Clergy Widows. Those on the west side of Shelly Row were for poor women from the parishes of Holy Trinity and St Giles.

1884

Sarah Sandfield elected to the Storey’s Almshouse ( Source: Edward Storey Foundation Register of almspeople, pensioners & lists of applicants 1892 – 1925 held at Cambs Archives)

Sarah was born in 1823 – baptised at St Giles January 1824 & lived her entire life in the immediate (Castle Street) area attending St Giles church.  She never married; worked as a seamstress.  Sarah, together with adult siblings, lived with her widowed mother.  In her own old age she took in her 15 year old great neice after her sister Ann’s daughter Mary died in 1901.  The 1911 census reveals the aged Sarah has the help of Rebecca Readhead – domestic servant age 54.  Rebecca signs the census form ‘on behalf of Sarah Sandfield’. This census form reveals there were three rooms in no. 6 Storey’s Bldgs. [Information kindly provided in 2024 by ML]

1901

Sarah Sandfield, 77, b Cambridge

1911

Sarah Sandfield died. Buried in Ascension Burial Ground.

1913 (6)

Miss Hinson

1962 (6)

Mrs E S Corn