The Pits, Isleham c.1930. Photo by D G Reid (Cabs Collection)

The Pits, Isleham

History of the Pits, Isleham

The Pits, Isleham is significant because here is evidence that documents the lived experience of a working rural community shaped by small-scale trades, labouring work and informal workshops. Oral history evidence describing carpentry, painting and “odd jobs” carried out by local craftsmen gives a vivid insight into the mixed economy of Fen-edge villages, where individuals often combined several occupations to make a living. The entry also preserves memories of closely packed cottages, local shops and everyday social life, helping to reveal how poorer rural communities functioned before widespread mechanisation and modern housing redevelopment transformed the area.

These were lime pits. Mike Petty noted in Vanishing Cambridge that a crowded settlement called the Pits grew up in an old chalk quarry 20ft below street level. Recurring epidemics of cholera together with a gradual demolition of the closely-set, gardenless, chalk built cottages reduced the number of residents , though there were still 55 inhabited dwellings in 1910. By the 1960s most of the dilapidated cottages had been removed.

A Houghton in Memories of Isleham village (1988) noted: There used to be the Maid’s Head and a shop where they sold sweets and groceries. There was another shop in The Pits where they sold groceries and meat kept by Mrs Cooke. A man named Howe had a workshop down there. He used to do odd jobs, painting houses, etc and carpentry …. the houses were crowded together, no gardens or ground, not even enough for a linen line. Some of the houses (the Maid’s Head is one) have entrances on the ground floor and on the top floor.

The photo shows Ambrose Becket who was born in the cottage on the right, and Miss Austin who also lived there.

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1901 The Pits, Maids Head

Arthur Colten, 32, farmer and publican, b Isleham

Mary J, 28, b Isleham

Julia, 2, b Isleham

Bertie, 1, b Isleham

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