Victorian Cambridge & the Building of Sturton Town
Film produced by HistoryWorks called ‘Sturton Town in Victorian Times’
Helen Weinstein has been researching the story of the area known as 'Sturton Town' and has recently made a film for sharing at the 'Open Cambridge Online Festival'. The film shows how an entire community to the west and north of Mill Road was built in a decade.
Some elders still know the name of the neighbourhood as 'Sturton Town' and remember when there was 'Sturton Town Hall' (see the Town Hall Building clearly marked on our illustration close-up of the 1888 coloured OS map, showing front door is where Scholar's House now stands opposite St Barnabas Church, and Town Hall's side and doors were accessed on Gwydir Street through a passageway adjacent to Dale's Brewery by what is now Hot Numbers Cafe). Older residents also remember the 'Sturton Town Printers' the 'Sturton Town Milk Company' and so if you know of other local businesses using this name, please be in touch with Helen at Historyworks to let her know!
‘Sturton Town in Victorian Times’ tells the story of how the neighbourhood was open fields up until September 1869 when it was sold to Joseph Sturton, a building developer. Sturton rapidly constructed streets and facilities and sold off plots of land for housing and businesses, with streets planned and street names chosen ready for marketing in December 1869. Sturton created an entire community including over one thousand homes, victorian terraces mostly built between 1870 and 1880, known as ‘Sturton Town’ a parallel story to Ironworks today.
In the film, you’ll see the Victorian homes and businesses, including the Iron Foundry at Ironworks as Helen Weinstein tells the story of how Sturton Town once was a well-known area linking East Road to Mill Road. The area served not only the railway but a thriving neighbourhood of businesses and shops in Victorian times, from the Ironworks at Headly’s Eagle Iron Foundry to the dairies and brewers, shoe and boot makers, laundries and dressmakers who lived with their families in the terraced housing. There is evidence of these Victorian businesses still surviving to this day at the locations shown in the virtual history tour.
Please click on the link below to watch the film Introducing Sturton Town in Victorian Times:
