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60 Grange Road, Silbury
History of 60 Grange Road
Silbury, 60 Grange Road was erected by William Sindall in 1906, a builder whose yards were located in Newnham, on one of five plots leased from St John’s College in 1899. The house was built to the designs of Amian Lister Champneys (1879-1951), architect and author. Amian Champneys was the son of the esteemed Victorian architect Basil Champneys (1842-1935), one of the pioneers of the ‘Queen Anne’ style, whose most notable designs include Rylands Library in Manchester (listed at Grade I) and Mansfield College in Oxford (listed at Grade II*). An alumnus of Trinity College, Cambridge, Basil Champneys designed a multitude of academic buildings in Cambridge, including a number of Grade II* and Grade II listed buildings for the newly-founded Newnham College between 1874 and 1913, and 48 Grange Road (c1880, listed at Grade II).
1906
1939
Ernest H Longland, b 1869, clerk in Holy Orders retired
Emily R, b 1872
Ethel L Daniels, b 1908, cook
Ivy K Peachey, b 1911, housemaid
Joan Sheldon, b 1921, housemaid
Gertrude E Parker, b 1904, civil servant typist
Nellie Adams, b 1911, civil servant shorthand typist
WWII:
This was used as a rest home for wounded servicemen. Eileen Rollo worked here as a nurse before she married biochemist Peter Mitchell who was awarded 1978 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. The couple divorced in 1954.
1945
Peter Mitchell acquired the lease of the house and the couple moved in. A number of flats were let out.
Extravagant parties were held in the garden. One of the most celebrated was in the spring of 1953. It was Peter’s idea: ‘Clergymen and Goddesses’. Eileen dressed as Psyche; Mitchell chose to appear as the Devil. Joseph Needham dressed as a Chinese priest in a huge blue robe. (See Life on the Edge by Peter Varey, 2012)
1947 – 1954 Peter and Sheila Stern
1954 Peter Mitchell left Cambridge for Edinburgh
Email fom J M (2022): I was interested to receive an email from a lifelong friend Tessa Stern, who lived in the top floor flat at Silbury, referring to your article. My sister Julia and I lived at Silbury from birth until the early 1960’s when our mother moved to 31 Madingley road. As you can imagine , the house was frequented by many interesting people at that time, including Brian Robertson, who became the director of the Whitechapel art gallery in London and Elisabeth Vellacott, the artist.
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