Sorrento Hotel Cherry Hinton Road

The Sorrento Hotel, Cambridge

History of Sorrento Hotel site

The Sorrento Hotel is actually the fusion of four houses, 190-196 Cherry Hinton Road.

In 1913 the properties were occupied by:

• 190 Avondale, William Torkington
• 192 St George’s Henry Drew
• 194 Mount Pleasant, Lawrence Clulow
• 196 Malabar (Southburgh) Charles Tilbrook (commercial traveller)

The houses were gradually bought up by Ciro Ruggiero whose home was Sorrento. He came to Cambridge in 1955 and worked first for Fulbourn Nursery, then as a chef at the Arts Theatre and later the Royal Cambridge and University Centre. As his family hotel business grew in the 1970s so he acquired further adjacent properties.

In the 1970s the Cambridge Weekly News wrote an article about the Ruggiero family, in particular their love of Petanque, the French form of bowls.

Sources: Cambridge News (Cambridgeshire Collection), UK census