‘Jemmy’ Gordon

Barnwell Workhouse

History of the Barnwell Workhouse

The website workhouses.org.uk contains the following about the workhouse in Barnwell:

During the eighteenth century, the poor of Holy Sepulchre benefited from a bequest made in 1710 by Mr James Lowry. Part of the income from this charity was used for renting five cottages at the back of the Round Church to act as a workhouse. In 1813, the parish gave up these tenements and two years later paid £60 for part of the Geldart estate in Barnwell on which a workhouse was erected. The site had a forty-foot frontage on Staffordshire Place (now Staffordshire Street) running back 276 feet to Albert Street (now Young Street). In 1816, the parish of St Mary the Less paid Holy Sepulchre for a share in the premises.

In 1836, after the creation of the Cambridge and Chesterton poor law unions, the workhouse was used for a few years to house around a dozen sick and infirm paupers.

Baker’s map of 1830 shows the Workhouse as described.

Note at the very bottom of the map excerpt above is St Andrew the Less Workhouse.