Down in the Cellars of Cherry Hinton Hall
2010 Diaries
I have been back down the cellars of Cherry Hinton Hall this morning to gather up and rescue more of the archives which were discovered there a couple of months ago.
Oaks International School now rent the Hall building from the Council and the teachers and pupils there have been a fantastic inspiration. They have taken real care and interest in their school building along with the history of the site and local area. I went out to visit them a couple of months ago to take them some old maps, records and artefacts, relating to the building and site. Also to show the children around the parkland and point out all the lumps and bumps on the ground, telling them what we think is hidden beneath.
While I took some of the children round the park one of the teachers did a history trail in the Hall building, which included a visit down the cellars The children came up from the celler clutching handfulls of interesting old documents from the mid 20th century and paper work which they had discovered down there. There were things like old Folk Festival programmes from the 1970's, Royal Ballet tickets, City Council amenities records and all sorts. I then went down into the cellars myself, to see where these had all come from. I found there was a very sizeable amount of these documents all piled up on a ledge and some in old decaying wooden crates. The cellars, were vey dark - no electricity - and very, very damp, with running water culverts in places. The documents were in need of being removed and examined as soon as possible. So it was agreed that I could go back sometime soon and take the archives out, remove them for examination and preservation.
A couple of weeks ago, both myself and Jonathan Phillips, went down in the cellars to begin sorting this lost archive out but not having electricity and the sheer amount which was there, we decided to take a sample of the archive and come back another day with re-enforcements and better lighting!
On Saturday the Oaks International School was awarded a CYPHA award (Cambridgeshire Young Persons History Award) at the CALH (Cambridgeshire Association for Local History) AGM & awards in Toft, Cambridge. I had put the school forward for this award, as I was so impressed by the work the children had produced on their local area, the interest they had shown in the history and how the teachers had been so encouraging.
Today I have been back to the cellars, along with Jonathan & Nicola Phillips to retrieve the remaining archives. This time we had much better lighting (it is very spooky down in those cellars!) and we spent a good couple of hours ferrying the archives out of the cellar to my car. There was so much! A lot had, sadly, been so badly damaged by water and had rotted but a huge amount was still fine - there was a lot of old council reocrds from the 1930's to late 1970's. Lots of interest, with things like parks and gardens records, items from the allotment society and records of the Cambridge Festival etc. My car was filled - literally! As so much of the material didn't actually relate to the Hall itself or just to Cherry Hinton village, I decided to give my friend Phillip Saunders a ring. Phillip is a well known Cambridgeshire archivist working at Cambridgeshire Archives (formally Cambridgeshire Records Office). I had a chat about what we had and asked him if I could pop up to Shire Hall to the Cambs Archives, so that he could have a look and see if he was interested. He agreed, so off I went, car nearly touching the floor with the weight! (good job I have an old banger). Phillip and one of the conservators came out to the car and had a good look and decided they would be able to take the archives in and sort them out, which was fantastic news :)
Once they have had chance to go through them properly, Phillip will get back to me with an update and we'll see how it goes.
So all in all, I'm very pleased that we were able to rescue these documents before they degraded any further.
