Manor Cottages, Church Street, Chesterton ©RGL2023

Manor Cottages, 11 & 12 Church Street, Chesterton

History of Manor Cottages

23 November 1923
Mr Taylor told the house possession hearing that he was the owner of numbers 11 and 12 Church Street, Old Chesterton. He wanted to knock a hole through the wall of the adjacent house and join one bedroom on to his house. He was willing to allow one shilling off his tenant’s rent. The plaintive said his wife suffered from nerves and required perfect quiet at night. The slightest noise broke her rest. Defendant and his wife annoyed him by “singing that molly-coddle hymn, ‘Who shall enter the pearly gates?’ for two hours at a time”. The judge made an order for possession of the required bedroom and fixed the rent at 4s. a week for the rest of the house

Credit: Mike Petty Archive, Cambridge Chesterton Scrapbook, reference 1923 11 23.

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21 March 1936
Harry Pitt of Manor Cottage, Church Road has written recalling ‘The Walking Lady of Chesterton’. “She walked for a wager ‘a thousand miles in a thousand hours’ in a private garden in Church Street, Chesterton 60 years ago. I have been told that she walked in tights with high-topped boots, a jockey’s cap and whip in hand. The story goes that she kept up her one mile per hour, walking day and night until she completed her task and won the wager.” Other readers may enlighten us still further

Credit: Mike Petty Archive, Cambridge Chesterton Scrapbook, reference 36 03 21c.

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1939

(11) Harry Pitt, gardener

William Pitt, cycle repairer

(12) Mrs Reynolds