The alms houses in King Street

117 King Street, Knight & Mortlock’s (St Mary’s) Almshouses

History of 11 King Street

Notes on the history of the Knight and Mortlock almshouses can be found on British History Online:

Knight and Mortlock’s almshouses were founded by will of Elizabeth Knight (proved 1647). Legacies from Elizabeth Knight’s kinsmen increased the stipends of the two widows and four spinsters who were inmates. The almshouses were rebuilt in 1818 by Alderman William Mortlock who also, apparently, looked after the charity generally and prevailed on the Corporation as trustees to administer it in accordance with the trusts. Between 1880 and 1883 the charity property at the corner of Jesus Lane and King Street was rebuilt and the almshouses were moved from the Jesus Lane to the King Street side. These almshouses, together with those of St. Anthony and St. Eligius, are now managed by the Municipal Charities, and in 1951 the inmates of both received £156 3s. 11d. altogether, which came partly from the funds of other charities managed by the same trustees.

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Built 1880

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1 January 1902 – Fire at St Mary’s Almshouses
A potentially disastrous fire broke out in one of St Mary’s Almshouses in King Street on New Year’s Day 1902. An employee from the nearby New Theatre noticed smoke rising from the ground-floor room of one of the almshouses adjoining the Horse and Groom public house. Entering the building, he found the elderly occupant lying unconscious while the fire had already taken hold. The design of the seventeenth-century almshouses made the situation particularly dangerous, as residents occupying the upper rooms could escape only by a single narrow staircase. Sixteen firemen arrived with three hose carts and succeeded in bringing the blaze under control before it spread through the building. The incident highlights both the vulnerability of older residential buildings in Edwardian Cambridge and the growing professionalism of the town’s fire brigade.

Source: Mike Petty Archive, Cambridge King Street Scrapbook 1897–1990, summarising

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1913 Miss A Stone

1962 L Boyce

https://cambridgeunitedcharities.wordpress.com/the-almshouses/#King_Street