• Home
• /
• Projects
• /
• Centre
• /
• Bridge Street

4 Bridge Street, Hoop Inn

History of 4 Bridge Street

Pevsner notes, nos 3-4 (altered, formerly part of the Hoop Inn, are of 1729. Heads in the keystones of the upper floor.

See also Hoop Inn

1798 Map of Cambridge showing Hoop Inn

1959 Royal Commission on Historical Monuments Survey of Cambridge: it was built in 1729. In the 19th cent. the middle flights of the staircase were refashioned and the first floor windows to the street modified…. Nos. 3 and 4 together once formed part of the Hoop Inn, earlier than the Bell Inn.

A B Gray noted in 1921 in Cambridge Revisited:

The well-known house in Bridge Street (No.4) with iron rings under the eaves and grotesque masks above the windows was built, together with the adjoining house, in 1729, and has been known successively as Ye Bell Inn and The Hoop. Though the glories of the The Hoop are now past, its fame is immortalised by Wordsworth in his prelude:

Onward we drove beneath the castle; caught 

While crossing Magdalene Bridge, a glimpse of Cam;

And at the Hoop alighted, famous Inn.

Till well past the middle of the 19th century the Hoop was the headquarters of the Whig party, the eagle in Bene’t Street being that of the Tories.

1913

Frank Dalton & Co, hunting boot makers

W P Hollis proprietor

Hoop Chambers:

1. Miss Jacobs
2. Mrs Girdlestone

1939-45

HQ 101Cambridgeshire ZAA Battery HG

1962

(3-7) King and Harper, motor agents

4 Bridge Street

Our Price Records
2000-2003 Ablegrand Ltd
2003-2009 White Stuff Ltd
2011-current Futuredog Ltd t/as Sevenwolves

Dear Visitor,

Thank you for exploring historical Cambridgeshire! We hope you enjoy your visit.

Did you know that we are a small, independent Museum and that we rely on donations from people like you to survive?

If you love Capturing Cambridge, and you are able to, we’d appreciate your support today.

Every donation makes a world of difference.

Thank you,

The Museum of Cambridge