Medlands, Common Lane, Hemingford Abbots (RGL2025)

Medlands, 44 Common Lane, Old Boot and Slipper, Hemingford Abbots

History of Medlands

Listed Building

C16 cottage.

C16 timber-framed barn of three bays.

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1910 bought by Alfred Edward Tombleson, an artist and stained glass maker, who worked for the stained glass firm of Charles Eamer Kempe.

YP emailed in 2026: Tombleson was born in Houghton in 1851, he worked for F.R Leach in Cambridge before becoming the manager of Kempe’s glassworks in London in 1890.  When he bought the house it was called the Old Boot and Slipper public house and is now a private house that has since returned to this original name. before WW1 artists from the Kempe studio would stay at the house for their annual sketching camp. 

There are a number of windows in Cambridge that Tombleson would have made.  The East (designer John Carter) and West (designer John Lisle) windows in Little St Mary’s church were all designed and made at the studios of Charles Eamer Kempe in London.  Kempe would include his own coat of arms in these windows,  but in these two windows you can also find the monogram of Alfred Tombleson, who would have made and installed the windows.  There are only 70 Tombleson monograms in the country, two are here, one more in Queens’ College chapel.