A small museum, with a big story to share
January ended with James waiting anxiously for a cargo of wheat from Hamburg which he bought for £1,300 (several tons of wheat). On Thursday 31st of January James writes in his diary: I hope the ship will come but no
by Dr N Henry The grade one listed church in Bottisham, Holy Trinity, houses many treasures but is noticeably one of the rare churches to celebrate the lives of women and their contributions to society. Women are celebrated in all
It was a sad irony to discover in the Museum of Cambridge the beautiful book of etchings by Robert Farren, Cambridge and Its Neighbourhood, published in 1881, just as Farren’s house of the same year, Mayfield, 110 Hills Road, was
Christmas had been a non-event for James Nutter who, as a Baptist and a true Puritan spirit, had worked most of that day. After all, Christmas had been condemned and banned in the 1640s by the Puritan parliament who saw
While these five small objects might not look important at first glance, on closer inspection they have a huge wealth of history and lore surrounding them. They are astragali, or knucklebones, and are the talus bones from sheep or goats.
In Georgian times, the festive season started on the 6th of December (Saint Nicholas’ day) and finished on Twelfth Night (the evening preceding Epiphany). This meant that, at least for the middle classes and the aristocracy, there was during this
We continue looking into Victorian Cambridge through the eyes of Josiah Chater, a young draper’s apprentice. Read on to see what 1844 Christmas had in store for him! An observation Josiah noted down and was impressed by was the amount
Josiah Chater started to keep his diary in October 1844 at the age of 15. He was living at the time at 12 Market Street, apprenticed to William Eaden Lilley, draper, carpet warehouseman, paper merchant and seller of painting materials.
As we uncover more of James Nutter’s life, read on to see what November had in store for him, as we look into James’ discovery and research on his friend’s Reverend Robert Hall’s illness. At the end of October 1804,
It was an email to Capturing Cambridge earlier this year that uncovered this tragic tale of greed and embezzlement. It revealed family feelings that are still raw today, looking back on the suicide of Anthony Phypers, a well-off and respected