18, Wymondham House, Brooklands Avenue, Cambridge

History of 18 Brooklands Avenue

Described by Pevsner (Cambridgeshire p.329) as the ‘best of the Victorian villas on the south side’

1883, the builder George Kett’s own house. White brick, with quite a display of carved C16-style stonework.’ The family moved here from Morley Lodge, Brooklands Avenue.

1891

George Kett

Catharine

Alice C Kett, 26, born Cambridge

Frederick W Kett, 24, corn merchant, born Cambridge

Maud M

Ada Kitchen, 22, housemaid, born Lincs

Mary Ann Ison, cook, 23, born Thriplow

1901

George Kett, builder and contractor

Catharine, 66, born Norfolk

Maud M

Gertrude Spore, 23, housemaid, , born Suffolk

Hannah Legg, 53, cook, born Chesterton

1911

George Kett, 74, widower, retired ecclesiastical builder, born Wymondham, Norfolk

Maud Mary, daughter, 42, born Cambridge

Mary Lizzie Parker, visitor, 31, born Derby

Ethel Thody, housemaid, 28, born Over

Florence Moore, cook, 24, born Sheffield

1913

George Kett JP Alderman of the Borough

The book published in 1993 by the National Extension College, ‘Kett of Cambridge: an eminent Victorian and his family’, authored by Anna de Salvo, contains a detailed description of this property, not least because the National Extension College had bought the property in 1978.

In 1879 George Kett bought a plot for £880 a short distance from his current house, Morley Lodge. Three months later he bought an adjoining plot for £230 which also joined a strip of land he owned already. Wymondham House was built using some of the stone that was also being used for the Roman Catholic Church that the firm of Rattee and Kett was constructing at the time. The family had moved into the house by 1883.

Particular features of the house are the stained glass windows with the initial GK and the date 1883, a carved staircase with the initials GK and also those of all six children There are elaborate carvings on the fireplaces, doors and door surrounds. Descriptions survive of the furnishings of several of the rooms.

For Mary Greene’s reminiscences of Mr Kett, see her autobiography, The Joy of Remembering.