19 Cam Road, The Fleur de Lys Hotel / Public House

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19 Cam Road, Fleur de Lys Hotel circa 1925 (Cambs Collection)

19 Cam Road, The Fleur de Lys Hotel / Public House

History of 19 Cam Rod

Fleur de Lys, Cam Road

It was demolished in 2012

In 2022 HS sent this email and photo:

19 Cam Road was a residential house which my grandfather, William Osler, built for himself, his wife and their daughter (my mother) in the 1920s. My Grandfather was a carpenter and builder, born in the Fens, and had his workshop at 16 Elm St. Before moving to 19 Cam Road he and his wife family lived at a very small house in [18] Kingston St Cambridge. I did look up the Fleur De Lys Hotel which it appears became I bistro but then stopped trading in 2007. There is a reference to an accompanying Cam Guest House but I can find no address for it. Whatever, the photograph of the Fleur De Lys shows a much larger building than my grandfathers quite modest 1920s style house which, I think, had just three bedrooms.

William Osler circa 1930

I thought more about the matter of 19 Cam Rd yesterday and looking at web pages I can see the the Fleur De Lys, and the houses which would have stood alongside it, have been replaced with a new building still bearing a plaque to the Fleur De Lys on its corner. I suspect my grandfather’s house (the number 19 he built) was on one of the plots next to the Fleur De Lys and that this new development now encompasses number 19’s position and that of some other old addresses as well.

The photo is of my grandfather standing outside his workshop, superimposed on one of his blank invoices from the 30s. I think the photo is the older of the two documents but the invoice is interesting because it cites both the Cam Rd and Elm St addresses. I still have several of the invoice blanks which were left behind after he died.

Incidentally I see from StreetView that there is a BP filling station on the other side of the road, almost opposite the site of number 19. I remember my mother telling me that during the second world war, when Cambridge was at risk from German bombing, my grandmother was terrified that the petrol tanks there might be hit. So the garage must have been there for a long time too.

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