Brick building facade with a door featuring a small plaque and a large window displaying text about telegrams and family clubs.

Doctor’s surgery in Cottenham c.1910 (MoC30739)

Cottenham Data

Cottenham Scrapbook

Historical map of Cottenham with numbered land plots, pale green highlighting for property, and handwritten names of owners.

Cottenham map, at time of Enclosure Act, date unknown

Mike Petty’s Cottenham Scrapbook:

https://archive.org/details/CottenhamScrapbook1897To1990/mode/2up

Note from SB of the Burkett family in 2021:

They [Burkett and Chivers families] moved to Histon we think because of the outbreak of Smallpox in Cottenham in the 1790s . Both Burkett and Chivers families originated from Cottenham as did my paternal grandfather Wallace Pauley’s family. My aunt told me that the Burkett’s being good Christian (Baptists) people preferred to give things away including things that did not belong to them. Their acumen for business was not ‘noted’ unlike the Chivers “ who had their heads screwed on better”.

A white two-story cottage with a thatched roof stands beside a taller, dark-bricked building with several chimneys and windows.

Betsey Wood’s Dame School, Cottenham c.1840, location unknown

Drawing showing four framed sections of Victorian calligraphy and decorative text, one featuring a portrait of a woman.

Samples of work from Thomas Legge’s School in Cottenham c.1860

A woman with light hair wearing a double-breasted jacket sits at a table beside a large plant in a sepia-toned studio portrait.

Photo by F Stone, Cottenham, subject unknown (MoC)

A group of nine people wearing hats stand and sit among piles of tall, thin reeds, with a small child in the center foreground.

Stripping bark from osiers for Mr Joe Munsey basket maker of Cottenham c.1900 (photo F J Smith) (MoC367/75)

From left to right,

Back Row: Miss Sanderson, Mrs Alfred Gifford, unknown, unknown, Mrs Fred Thoday, Ernest Munsey

Front Row: Mrs Richard Croxon & daughter, Mrs William Milton, unknown

A row of women in long skirts and hats standing outdoors holding bicycles adorned with flowers in front of brick buildings.

Cottenham ladies with bicycles decorated to celebrate relief of Mafeking in 1900 (F J Smith)

A group of fifteen people in late nineteenth-century attire pose in two rows against a plain brick wall.

Cottenham school staff in 1895, Alfred Goddard centre.

A large group of schoolgirls in 1890s attire pose in rows before a brick wall, with one girl holding a small chalkboard sign.

Cottenham girls in 1895, class of Clara Graves.

In 1937 Albert Victor Haird was a cycle dealer at 256 (164) High Street Cottenham. His father Edward George was a wheelwright in 1911; the family lived then in Eastland Villa (location unknown).

Seven men stand in front of E. G. Haird motor works with motorbikes and a sidecar parked on the street in Cottenham.

A V and E G Haird, Cottenham (CC 29456) date unknown 1920s

A small brick building with a tiled roof and a central door, featuring faded signs for hairdressing services on its facade.

Derelict shop in Cottenham High Street probably in 1974. Signs advertise hairdressing, singeing, shaving and shingling (MoC60/75)

1943

A heavy stone press suspended by a metal screw mechanism over a flat stone base in a black and white illustration.

Cottenham cheese press, 1943 (MoC)

This was donated to the Folk Museum in 1943 by Miss Cross of King’s Langley. She had kept it for some years in hope of reviving the famous Cottenham cheese. Samuel Pepys mentions them with approval. The Press is a massive affair weighing about 5 cwt.

In Forgotten Heroes, Michael Bentinck tells the story of Bill Moody who had been brought up by foster parents in Cottenham. He joined the 1st Battalion Cambridgeshire Regiment and was imprisoned by the Japanese after the fall of Singapore.

Projects

Cottenham

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