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We came to Gwydir Street in 1979. The bollards were in place soon afterwards, and I remember a discussion about the houses on the Norfolk Street side of the bollards. The emergency services were worried that they would not know which side to approach to get to an address in Gwydir Street, and they wanted these few houses to become part of a different street. The options were a new street name, becoming part of Upper Gwydir Street or part of Norfolk Street. The Upper Gwydir Street option was no good, as the way the numbering goes in Gwydir Street and Upper Gwydir Street would meant that every house would have to be renumbered. People didn't want to become part of Norfolk Street, and no-one could think of a good new name. We all wanted to stay as Gwydir Street.
The Beaconsfield Club was still going then. This was an old Conservative Club, which degenerated into rather a shabby social club. There were frequent loud parties (despite the sound-proofing) and the occasional fight outside. Also it got frequently burgled and the alarm would be ringing for ages. Finally, after a policeman was assaulted breaking up one of the fights, the police advised that the license was removed, and the club had to close. The new flats were built in 1984. From an email correspondent, Jim: Although not a Gwydirian (?) I had many a cleansing session at the Public Baths and remember exiting the Kinema by the rear exit to come out almost under the Dales Clock. Sometimes with the connivence of a mate already inside we would enter the cinema by the same rear door but don't tell anyone, will you. 
I remember the Dewdrop Inn (now the Cambridge Blue) mainly because I had to wait outside on occasions for my Dad and Grandad to finish drinking. Their "locals" however were the Swimmer and the Midland I remember. My boyhood, from about four to fifteen anyway, was spent at 49 Devonshire Road, the home of my Grandparents in those days, indeed my brother who still lives in Cambridge was born there, so I have wonderful memories of the area. Thought you'd like to see the Devonshire Road VE Party - The guy on the right is the Reverend Rushton who was at that time the Vicar of St. Barnabas Church. The second kid in from the right is my brother Michael worrying that there don't seem many buns for all those people. From Mike Petty's column "Memories" (Feb 19, 2003) in the Cambridge Evening News. In 1963, News columnist Erica Dimock surveyed Gwydir Street for her ‘Down Your Street’ feature. The terraced houses looked much the same as they had since they were built in the 1860s, but the atmosphere of the street had changed. It was becoming 'the Soho of Cambridge' as young families moved away to be replaced with people from Italy, Jamaica, Poland, Yugoslavia and a variety of other countries. One man who knew the street well was Harry Pateman, a magistrate. He had lived in the same house for 70 years and could remember when they had their own chemist’s shop amongst the facilities on offer. The number of shops had declined but still included three grocery stores: Ernest Mills had been trading for 14 years, S F Cockell had moved there in the mid 1950s, and C Harpur’s shop had changed hands only recently.
Beer was an important part of the life of the street. Dale’s Brewery dominated the area near Mill Road. It had been founded in the 1890s, when there were no fewer than 22 breweries in Cambridge. But by 1963 it was being used as a distribution depot by Whitbread and its landmark 7ft high cup, a reminder of the gold cup won for the best beer at the Brewers’ International Exhibition in 1911, had been removed for safety reasons. Of the five public houses that had once traded, two were closed by 1963; the former Prince of Wales had been owned for a while by Peter Cook of Footlights and Beyond the Fringe frame and was then a
But perhaps the most important building in the street was the Bath House with its nine baths for men, nine for women. It had been established in 1927 at a time when few houses had bathrooms of their own. By 1963 it was open from Tuesday to Saturday each week, charging a shilling a person, for which you got a hot bath, towel and piece of soap - with a supplement for scented bath cubes - and was used by 300 men and 100 women each week. But as housing improved so fewer people had need of its facilities; by 1975 it was losing £7,000 a year and its boilers - second-hand when installed - were on their last legs. The baths closed in 1977. (The building is still used by various community groups). Follow-up article from Mike Petty - published on 26 February 2003 Taking the plunge - Local historian Mike Petty hears from residents who remember the days when the Public Baths opened in Gwydir Street
Ben Benstead from Victoria Road thinks he was the first paying customer at the Public Baths. "I was born in Gwydir Street in 1910. In 1927 I was a young apprentice working for The Electrical Wiring & Repair Company of Corn Exchange Street, Cambridge. Those of us living in the immediate vicinity had watched the building work with great interest - this was the first public bathhouse that we knew of in Cambridge and news of its opening was eventually published in the Cambridge Daily News (the newspaper which my parents had read since before I was born). "The opening day arrived and after work at 5.30pm another apprentice, Doug Smith, and I cycled to the baths. Unbeknown to us, there had been a problem with the heating boiler during the day and the baths were not yet in operation although several people were still sitting patiently in the waiting room. Doug and I joined them and in the next half-hour or so other people arrived: some ran out of patience and left until finally only about five of us remained. "An attendant came in and told us that although there was no guarantee that the water would be hot, we could - if we wanted - have a lukewarm bath. Doug and I were the only two to agree to this offer .We paid 4d and received a tablet of soap and a small towel. A second towel was available for a further charge of 1d. (Just as well as the towel was less than 3ft long and 18 inches wide!). "I was directed into a small cubicle with a stone/concrete floor. There was a slatted wooden bench and a couple of hooks on which to hang my clothes. The bath was already filled with water. (There were no taps, just a fill-pipe over the end of the bath). Lukewarm? - Forget it! My first real bath was in stone-cold water! Even so, I guess that Doug Smith and I were the first two paying customers in the Gwydir Street Baths. "I used the baths over the next six years until I married and moved away. You waited in the waiting room until you were called to pay your money and receive soap and towel before going to the cubicle where your filled bath awaited. If you wanted more water you called out to the attendant, ‘more hot in number six’ and received the reply, ‘water coming’ to give you a chance to move your feet away from the fill-pipe. "Sometimes the waiting room got very crowded. There was a workhouse nearby at 81a Mill Road (which later became the Cambridge Maternity Hospital) and many of the local tramps used the waiting room in the baths until the workhouse opened its doors in the early evening. The attendant found great difficulty in discouraging the tramps and the genuine customers had to contend with the ‘temporary visitors’ smoking all sorts of cigarette dog-ends they had accumulated. It got very smoky in that waiting room!" Tony Challis from Great Shelford was another who regularly patronised the baths: "As a young lad in the late 40s, I was a keen racing cyclist and would generally go training straight from work. Most of our work was pretty dirty and many times I would visit the Baths in Gwydir Street. "After paying the 1/- we would be shown into a bath cubicle. The attendant would turn on the hot taps from outside and, when the allowed amount had been delivered, would call out ‘cold water going in’. This phase of the operation was tricky. The temperature of the water had to be gauged just right. Too much cold and it was a tepid bath; not enough cold and you either had to wait or get scalded! After the attendant had been told to turn off the cold water there was nothing more to be said. No more water, hot or cold, was allowed. The soap provided, about two inches square and very thin, gave little lather and had no smell. The towel was, from memory, a starched piece of material which had poor drying properties. I must say that I don’t remember being offered scented bath cubes or that there was a women’s end (wish I had known). By today’s standard it was all rather primitive, but it did the job and seemed to be well used." Tony was apprenticed to George Lister and Sons of Abbey Road. He recalls: "Besides working in the blacksmith and machine shops we would work at many firms around the city. My mentor was Bill Rouse who seemed to be mostly employed in the breweries, Tolly on Newmarket road, Panton Street, and, of course Dales. I recall one of our jobs was to refurbish the name ‘Dales Brewery’ on the tower at the top of the building, steel letters some 12-inches high which were bolted on all four sides around the gold cup. "The job must have been carried out in the winter because I remember it being cold and very foggy and we couldn’t see the ground at all. The letters there now are probably the same ones. Not only did we climb to the top of ‘Dales’ we also descended to the very bottom, as one of our visits was to fit new leather washers to the pumps at the foot of the well that was just inside the entrance." From an email correspondent, Don Halls: I was born in Vicarage Terrace in 1927 and know the area well. Of course you are very aware that years ago Vicarage Terrace was bombed, nos 1 through 10 were wiped out and several of my childhood acquaintances were killed. I left England in 1950 and now live in Palm Springs Ca. My niece Mandy and her husband Nick ran the Cambridge Blue for some years up until about 5 years ago. I remember, as a child, walking with my mother through Mill Rd Cemetary to get from Norfolk Street to Mill Road, and going to the Playhouse movies. I well remember a store, a confectioner, named Hoppit and opposite was a print shop ownedby my sisters-in-laws, the Bigg Family. My family were for the most part stonemasons but my uncle Harvey Halls was for many years the publican of the Wheelwright Arms on East Road (he was by trade a wheelwright). The Wheelwright Arms was close to where Mackays is. There were two pubs next door to each other, the Horse and Groom and the Wheelwrights Arms. Opposite was the Brittania. Years ago it was said that one could not go along East Road and have a pint at each pub as there were so many. |
One newcomer was Sadie Segal who had brought her second-hand clothing shop from Norfolk Street, having been trading for 23 years, ever since she moved down from London during the war. But trade was not what it used to be, since people could now obtain almost anything on credit. Shoes would always be needed, and would always need mending. The British Shoe Corporation had its repair works in Upper Gwydir Street where some 1,300 pairs were repaired each week, as they had since 1914. But now things were changing and craftsmanship was being eliminated by new processes, stitching having been replaced by sticking.
lodging house, the Gwydir Arms was a private house. The Brewer’s Arms had a good darts team, but the 
It is hard to associate urban Gwydir Street with exotic snakes, lizards or spiders, but they were a regular hazard for H W Barnes, director of Whitehead’s wholesale fruit and vegetable warehouse. They had hanging space for 900 stems of bananas some containing creepy crawlies, a quite impressive sight, and something like seven tons were received and despatched each week.
Although oranges and South African apples were still very popular there was an increasing demand for more unusual fruit and continental produce.
