Trumpington Local History Group: Shelford Road in the Early 19th Century

Trumpington Village Sign unveiled June 2010, designed by Sheila Betts.

Trumpington Local History Group
Shelford Road in the Early 19th Century

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Andrew Roberts

This is part of a history of the Shelford Road area of Trumpington, covering the early 19th century. For an introduction, see Shelford Road: 3000 Years of History.

Extract from A Map of the Parish of Trumpington in the County of Cambridge, 1804. Reproduced by permission of Cambridgeshire Archives, R60/24/2/70(a).

At the beginning of the 19th century, Trumpington was a small village surrounded by a network of open fields, with farmhouses, coaching inns and houses close to the village centre. Almost all the land in the parish was owned by the Pemberton and Anstey families. The Inclosure Act of 1801-04 led to the enclosure of the open fields either side of Shelford Road: the fields called South Croft to the south west of the road were awarded to the Vicar (the Church); the fields called Moor Field to the north east were awarded to Francis Charles James Pemberton, apart from a small area at the road junction which was awarded to Christopher Anstey and three fields near the parish boundary awarded to the Trumpington Charity, William Dobson and William Stacey. The surveyors prepared a detailed map of the parish, which recorded their decisions (Cambridgeshire Archives 130/01; Victoria History of the Counties of England, 1982, p. 249, 260).

After the enclosure, a number of farmsteads were built away from the village centre, including Vicarage Farm (or Glebe Farm), which was established on the church land about Ľ mile to the south west of the road and was the only house near the road until the early 1900s. Although no longer used as an active farmhouse and soon to be surrounded by the Glebe Farm housing development, the farmhouse survives and has been renovated (Victoria History of the Counties of England, 1982, p. 249).

Richard Grey Baker produced maps of Cambridgeshire and Cambridge between 1817 and 1830, which showed the road from Trumpington to Great Shelford and indicated a weighing machine and weighbridge house near the road junction. Writing in 1889, Samuel Page Widnall recalled the weighbridge house as it was in the 1840s and the large number of stagecoaches which would pass by (Cambridgeshire Records Society, 1999; Victoria History of the Counties of England, 1982, facing p. 161; Widnall, 1889).

Extracts from A Map of the Parish of Trumpington in the County of Cambridge, 1804. Reproduced by permission of Cambridgeshire Archives, R60/24/2/70(a).

Glebe Farmhouse. Photo: Andrew Roberts, August 2008.

The Weighbridge House from the Shelford Road/High Street junction, August 2008.

The Weighbridge House from the Shelford Road/High Street junction. Photo: Andrew Roberts, August 2008.

Extract from Baker’s Map of Cambridge, 1830.

Extract from Baker’s Map of Cambridgeshire, 1824.

Extracts from Baker’s Map of Cambridgeshire, 1824 (Victoria History of the Counties of England, 1982, facing p. 161) and Baker’s Map of Cambridge, 1830 (reproduced by permission of the Cambridgeshire Records Society, 1999).

Sources
(see Bibliography for further information)

Cambridgeshire Records Society (1999). Baker's Map of the University and Town of Cambridge, 1830: with an introduction by Sarah Bendall. : Cambridgeshire Records Society.

The Victoria History of the Counties of England (1982). A History of Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely, Volume VIII. Armingford and Thriplow Hundreds. Edited by C.R. Elrington. Oxford: Oxford University Press for the Institute of Historical Research. Trumpington chapter, p. 248-67.

Widnall, S.P. (1889). Reminiscences of Trumpington Fifty Years Ago. Grantchester: the Author.

Continue with the next part or go to the introduction to the history of the road.

Email: admin@trumpingtonlocalhistorygroup.org