Jump to content

Wilberforce Road: Difference between revisions

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous edit
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
CMS; +ref
Adding local short description: "Street in Cambridge, England", overriding Wikidata description "street in Cambridge, England, UK"
 
(30 intermediate revisions by 5 users not shown)
Line 1: Line 1:
{{Short description|Street in Cambridge, England}}
'''Wilberforce Road''' is a residential street in the western outskirts of [[Cambridge]], England, which runs north–south, connecting [[Madingley Road]] with Adams Road, which runs eastwards to [[Grange Road, Cambridge|Grange Road]].<ref name=Guillebaud_interwar />
[[File:Wilberforce Rd - geograph.org.uk - 3875317.jpg|thumb|right|Wilberforce Road: south end]]
'''Wilberforce Road''' is a street in the western outskirts of [[Cambridge]], England, which runs north–south for 550&nbsp;metres,<ref name=OS /> connecting [[Madingley Road]] with Adams Road, which runs eastwards to [[Grange Road, Cambridge|Grange Road]]. The road was built in 1933, although several of its buildings date from earlier in the 20th century. It was named after [[William Wilberforce]], the anti-slavery campaigner. Wilberforce Road falls within the [[Conservation area (United Kingdom)|conservation area]] of West Cambridge. As of 2022, the usage is a mix of private housing and buildings and sports facilities associated with the university and colleges, including the [[Centre for Mathematical Sciences (Cambridge)|Centre for Mathematical Sciences]]. There are two [[listed building]]s, [[Emmanuel College, Cambridge|Emmanuel College]]'s sports pavilion (1910) and the [[Modernist architecture|Modernist]]-style number 9 (1936–37).


==History==
==History==
A drift existed on the route, which connected St John's Grange Farm to Madingley Road, and a handful of agricultural cottages (dating from 1905) and bungalows (1926) pre-date the road construction. The local historian Philomena Guillebaud notes that the bungalows are the only working-class housing to be built on land belonging to [[St John's College, Cambridge|St John's College]] in west Cambridge, other than those housing the college's own agricultural workers.<ref name=Guillebaud_interwar /> St John's College sold 10&nbsp;acres of land now lying on the west of the road to [[Emmanuel College, Cambridge|Emmanuel College]] in 1907 for sports grounds, and a sports pavilion and adjoining groundsman's house and stable were constructed in 1910 for Emmanuel.<ref name=listing_pavilion />
A drift existed on the route, which connected St John's Grange Farm to Madingley Road, and a handful of agricultural cottages (dating from 1905) and bungalows (1926) pre-date the road construction. The local historian Philomena Guillebaud notes that the bungalows are the only working-class housing to be built on land belonging to [[St John's College, Cambridge|St John's College]] in west Cambridge, other than those housing the college's own agricultural workers.<ref name=Guillebaud_interwar /> St John's College sold {{cvt|10|acre}} of land now lying on the west of the road to [[Emmanuel College, Cambridge|Emmanuel College]] in 1907 for sports grounds, and a sports pavilion and adjoining groundsman's house and stable were constructed in 1910 for Emmanuel.<ref name=listing_pavilion />


[[File:Emmanuel College Sports Pavilion (geograph 3024687).jpg|thumb|left|Emmanuel College Sports Pavilion]]
Wilberforce Road was constructed in 1933 by the borough council, funded by St John's College, which owned the land and wished to develop it, with contribution from Emmanuel College. It was named for [[William Wilberforce]], a student at John's, to mark the centenary of the abolition of slavery across the British Empire. It is connected to [[Grange Road, Cambridge|Grange Road]], which runs broadly parallel to the east, by Clarkson Road, built at the same time, and Adams Road (1898). St John's College leased building plots of 0.5&nbsp;acres for 99&nbsp;years on both Wilberforce and Clarkson Roads, with 17 plots having been taken up on the two streets by 1939.<ref name=Guillebaud_interwar />
Wilberforce Road was constructed in 1933 by the borough council, funded by St John's College, which owned the land and wished to develop it, with contribution from Emmanuel College. It was named after [[William Wilberforce]], a student at John's, to mark the centenary of the abolition of slavery across the British Empire. It is connected to [[Grange Road, Cambridge|Grange Road]], which runs broadly parallel to the east, by Clarkson Road, built at the same time, and Adams Road (1898). St John's College leased building plots of {{cvt|0.5|acre}} for 99&nbsp;years on both Wilberforce and Clarkson Roads, with 17 plots having been taken up on the two streets by 1939.<ref name=Guillebaud_interwar />

After the Second World War, a row of maisonettes was built at the northern end, on the west side, and a larger private residential development occurred at the southern end on the east side, also on Adams Road.<ref name=Guillebaud_1945 /> In 1989, the university tried to build an athletics centre on a {{cvt|20|acre|adj=on}} site off the road's southern end, but failed to gain planning permission; the plans were reduced to a pavilion and running track, which was started in 1993.<ref name=Guillebaud_1945 /> Plans were initiated in 1997 to move the university's [[Faculty of Mathematics, University of Cambridge|mathematical departments]] to a site off Wilberforce and Clarkson Roads, adjacent to the existing [[Isaac Newton Institute]]. The original plans for three-storey buildings met with opposition from residents, and a new plans for partially underground buildings were substituted. Construction commenced in 1998, and the [[Centre for Mathematical Sciences (Cambridge)|Centre for Mathematical Sciences]] was completed in around 2002.<ref name=Guillebaud_1945 />


==Buildings and features==
==Buildings and features==
[[File:9 Wilberforce Road, Cambridge.jpg|thumb|right|9 Wilberforce Road (1936–1937), one of several Modernist houses locally]]
Wilberforce Road contains several [[Modernist architecture|Modernist]] buildings, including number 9, by Dora Cosens for Dr W. Thorpe (1936–37); number 11 (1950–51), one of the first post-war Modernist buildings in Cambridge; and number 19 by [[H. C. Hughes]] for Dr Zachary N. Brooke (1933–34).<ref name=Pevsner /><ref name=Gould /><ref>Rawle, p. 64</ref> There are also substantial traditional-style interwar houses such as number 7 (1937–38).<ref name=Guillebaud_interwar /> Number 1 was built in 1965 by the architect John Youngman for himself.<ref name=Pevsner>Bradley & Pevsner, p. 341</ref>
Wilberforce Road falls within the West Cambridge Conservation Area.<ref>Cambridge City Council, Appendix 3</ref> Among the buildings that pre-date the road itself, the most notable is [[Emmanuel College, Cambridge|Emmanuel College]]'s sports pavilion with its adjoining groundsman's house and stable (now number 38), completed in 1910. It was designed by the London architects Reginald Francis Wheatly and Edward Ford Duncanson, and is listed at [[Listed building|grade II]], as a rare example of a surviving Edwardian sports pavilion complete with ancillary buildings. The listing notes that its "complex roofscape of steep, sweeping pitches" lend it a "picturesque character".<ref name=listing_pavilion />


The road contains two of the eleven surviving [[Modernist architecture|Modernist]]-style buildings to be built in Cambridge during the 1930s.<ref name=Gould /> The grade-II-listed number 9, by [[Dora Cosens]] for the zoologist [[William Homan Thorpe]]<ref name=Thorpe_bio /> (1936–1937),<ref name=Pevsner /><ref name=Gould /><ref>Cambridge City Council, p. 30</ref> is constructed in rendered brick on a square plan. The concrete roof has a roof canopy.<ref>Powers, pp. 94–95</ref> Number 19 by [[H. C. Hughes]] was built for the historian [[Zachary N. Brooke]] (1933–1934), but is considerably altered from its original state.<ref name=Pevsner /><ref name=Gould /><ref>Cambridge City Council, p. 31–32</ref> Additionally [[31 Madingley Road]], a grade-II-listed Modernist red-brick house by [[Marshall Sisson]] (1931–1932), stands on the east side of the junction.<ref name=listing_31_MadRd /><ref>Powers, pp. 214–15</ref> (Another cluster of pre-war Modernist houses is located on nearby Conduit Head Road, on the north side of Madingley Road.<ref name=Gould />) In the interwar period substantial traditional-style houses such as number 7 (1937–1938) were also built on Wilberforce Road.<ref name=Guillebaud_interwar /> Number 11 (1950–1951) was one of the first post-war Modernist buildings in Cambridge,<ref>Rawle, p. 64</ref> and number 1 was built in 1965 by the architect John Youngman for himself.<ref name=Pevsner>Bradley & Pevsner, p. 341</ref>
University and college structures include the [[University of Cambridge]] [[Centre for Mathematical Sciences (Cambridge)|Centre for Mathematical Sciences]] on the east side,<ref name=CMS /> Emmanuel College's Sports Ground on the south-west side, and a site of the Cambridge School of Veterinary Medicine off the south end of the road.<ref name=listing_pavilion />

[[File:CMS Central Core 01.jpg|thumb|left|Centre for Mathematical Sciences]]
University facilities include the [[Centre for Mathematical Sciences (Cambridge)|Centre for Mathematical Sciences]] on the east side,<ref name=CMS /> built to an unusual design by [[Ted Cullinan]]. It features a central hub building with a series of six individual pavilions.<ref name=Guillebaud_1945 /><ref name=Glancey /><ref name=Pevsner_CMS /> In ''[[The Buildings of England]]'' series, Simon Bradley describes it as among Cullinan's best work, "at once wildly imaginative and tightly disciplined", and compares the pavilions to [[pagoda]]s or [[stupa]]s.<ref name=Pevsner_CMS>Bradley & Pevsner, p. 276</ref> The Cambridge University Athletics Sportsground is off the south end of Wilberforce Road,<ref name=Guillebaud_1945 /><ref name=Univ_map /> and Emmanuel College's Sports Ground lies on the south-west side, with the Cambridge Lawn Tennis Club adjacent,<ref name=listing_pavilion /><ref>Cambridge City Council, pp. 16, 28, 32</ref> on Stacey's Lane.<ref name=CLTC />

The Adams Road Bird Sanctuary, a local wildlife sanctuary with an artificial lake and woodland, lies between Wilberforce Road and Grange Road, and can be seen from Wilberforce Road. The lake is fed by damming Coton Stream, a tributary of Bin Brook, which continues westwards to reach Wilberforce Road,<ref name=OS /><ref name=Univ_map /><ref>Cambridge City Council, pp. 13, 17</ref> turns north to run alongside the road for around half its length, and then crosses the road and flows westwards.<ref name=Guillebaud_interwar /> The southern end of Wilberforce Road links to the Coton Footpath, a joint cycle path and footpath, which runs westwards to the village of [[Coton, Cambridgeshire|Coton]].<ref name=OS /><ref name=Guillebaud_interwar /><ref>Cambridge City Council, p. 13</ref>


==References==
==References==
{{reflist|refs=
{{reflist|refs=
<<ref name=CMS>[http://www.cms.cam.ac.uk/how-find-us How to find us] [[Centre for Mathematical Sciences (Cambridge)|Centre for Mathematical Sciences]], [[University of Cambridge]] (accessed 18 October 2022)</ref>
<ref name=CLTC>[http://www.cambridgeltc.com/ Cambridge Lawn Tennis Club] (accessed 18 October 2022)</ref>


<ref name=CMS>[http://www.cms.cam.ac.uk/how-find-us How to find us] [[Centre for Mathematical Sciences (Cambridge)|Centre for Mathematical Sciences]], [[University of Cambridge]] (accessed 18 October 2022)</ref>
⚫
<ref name=Gould>Jeremy Gould (1996). Gazetteer of Modern Houses in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. ''[[Twentieth Century Architecture]]'' (2): 112–128 {{jstor|41859593}}</ref>

<ref name=Glancey>Jonathan Glancey (15 October 2007). [https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2007/oct/15/architecture.ethicalliving A long time coming]. ''[[The Guardian]]''</ref>

⚫
<ref name=Gould>Jeremy Gould (1996). Gazetteer of Modern Houses in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. ''[[Twentieth Century Architecture]]'' (2): 112–128 {{JSTOR|41859593}}</ref>


<ref name=Guillebaud_interwar>Philomena Guillebaud (2015). [https://capturingcambridge.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/West-Cambridge.-4.-Two-World-Wars-and-the-inter-war-lull.-PCAS.-2008.-P-Guillebaud.pdf West Cambridge: the two World Wars and the inter-war lull]. ''[[Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society]]'' XCVII: 179–93</ref>
<ref name=Guillebaud_interwar>Philomena Guillebaud (2015). [https://capturingcambridge.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/West-Cambridge.-4.-Two-World-Wars-and-the-inter-war-lull.-PCAS.-2008.-P-Guillebaud.pdf West Cambridge: the two World Wars and the inter-war lull]. ''[[Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society]]'' XCVII: 179–93</ref>

<ref name=Guillebaud_1945>Philomena Guillebaud (2015). [https://capturingcambridge.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/West-Cambridge.-5.-Changes-in-the-landscape-of-west-Cambridge.-1945-to-2000.-PCAS.-2009.-P-Guillebaud.pdf Changes in the landscape of west Cambridge, Part V: 1945 to 2000]. ''[[Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society]]'' XCVIII: 127–42</ref>

<ref name=listing_31_MadRd>[https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1268371?section=official-list-entry 31 Madingley Road], National Heritage List for England, [[Historic England]] (accessed 20 September 2022)</ref>


<ref name=listing_pavilion>[https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1422595 Emmanuel College Sports Pavilion, including Groundsman's house and stable, 38 Wilberforce Road, Cambridge], ''National Heritage List for England'', [[Historic England]] (accessed 17 October 2022)</ref>
<ref name=listing_pavilion>[https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1422595 Emmanuel College Sports Pavilion, including Groundsman's house and stable, 38 Wilberforce Road, Cambridge], ''National Heritage List for England'', [[Historic England]] (accessed 17 October 2022)</ref>

<ref name=OS>''Cambridge: Royston, Duxford & Linton'', OS Explorer Map 209, [[Ordnance Survey]]</ref>

<ref name=Thorpe_bio>R. A. Hinde (1987). William Homan Thorpe. 1 April 1902–1907 April 1986. ''[[Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society]]'' 33: 620–639 {{JSTOR|769965}}</ref>

<ref name=Univ_map>[https://map.cam.ac.uk/Wilberforce+Road#52.208744,0.100068,16 University map: Wilberforce Road], [[University of Cambridge]] (accessed 18 October 2022)</ref>
}}
}}
'''Sources'''
'''Sources'''
*Simon Bradley, [[Nikolaus Pevsner]]. ''Cambridgeshire'' (''[[The Buildings of England]]'' series) (Yale University Press; 2014) {{isbn|978-0-300-20596-1}}
*Simon Bradley, [[Nikolaus Pevsner]]. ''Cambridgeshire'' (''[[The Buildings of England]]'' series) (Yale University Press; 2014) {{isbn|978-0-300-20596-1}}
*Cambridge City Council (May 2011). [https://www.greatercambridgeplanning.org/media/1637/west-cambridge-conservation-area-appraisal-2011.pdf West Cambridge Conservation Area Appraisal] (accessed 18 October 2022)
*[[Alan Powers]]. ''Modern: The Modern Movement in Britain'' (Merrell; 2005) {{isbn|9781858942551}}
*[[Tim Rawle]]. ''Cambridge Architecture'' (2nd edn) (André Deutsch; 1993) {{isbn|0-233-98818-1}}
*[[Tim Rawle]]. ''Cambridge Architecture'' (2nd edn) (André Deutsch; 1993) {{isbn|0-233-98818-1}}

==External links==
*[http://www.cambridge2000.com/cambridge2000/html/photograph_category/Wilberforce_Road.html Wilberforce Road]: photographs at Cambridge 2000

[[Category:Streets in Cambridge]]

Latest revision as of 00:41, 1 August 2024

Wilberforce Road: south end

Wilberforce Road is a street in the western outskirts of Cambridge, England, which runs north–south for 550 metres,[1] connecting Madingley Road with Adams Road, which runs eastwards to Grange Road. The road was built in 1933, although several of its buildings date from earlier in the 20th century. It was named after William Wilberforce, the anti-slavery campaigner. Wilberforce Road falls within the conservation area of West Cambridge. As of 2022, the usage is a mix of private housing and buildings and sports facilities associated with the university and colleges, including the Centre for Mathematical Sciences. There are two listed buildings, Emmanuel College's sports pavilion (1910) and the Modernist-style number 9 (1936–37).

History

[edit]

A drift existed on the route, which connected St John's Grange Farm to Madingley Road, and a handful of agricultural cottages (dating from 1905) and bungalows (1926) pre-date the road construction. The local historian Philomena Guillebaud notes that the bungalows are the only working-class housing to be built on land belonging to St John's College in west Cambridge, other than those housing the college's own agricultural workers.[2] St John's College sold 10 acres (4.0 ha) of land now lying on the west of the road to Emmanuel College in 1907 for sports grounds, and a sports pavilion and adjoining groundsman's house and stable were constructed in 1910 for Emmanuel.[3]

Emmanuel College Sports Pavilion

Wilberforce Road was constructed in 1933 by the borough council, funded by St John's College, which owned the land and wished to develop it, with contribution from Emmanuel College. It was named after William Wilberforce, a student at John's, to mark the centenary of the abolition of slavery across the British Empire. It is connected to Grange Road, which runs broadly parallel to the east, by Clarkson Road, built at the same time, and Adams Road (1898). St John's College leased building plots of 0.5 acres (0.20 ha) for 99 years on both Wilberforce and Clarkson Roads, with 17 plots having been taken up on the two streets by 1939.[2]

After the Second World War, a row of maisonettes was built at the northern end, on the west side, and a larger private residential development occurred at the southern end on the east side, also on Adams Road.[4] In 1989, the university tried to build an athletics centre on a 20-acre (8.1 ha) site off the road's southern end, but failed to gain planning permission; the plans were reduced to a pavilion and running track, which was started in 1993.[4] Plans were initiated in 1997 to move the university's mathematical departments to a site off Wilberforce and Clarkson Roads, adjacent to the existing Isaac Newton Institute. The original plans for three-storey buildings met with opposition from residents, and a new plans for partially underground buildings were substituted. Construction commenced in 1998, and the Centre for Mathematical Sciences was completed in around 2002.[4]

Buildings and features

[edit]
9 Wilberforce Road (1936–1937), one of several Modernist houses locally

Wilberforce Road falls within the West Cambridge Conservation Area.[5] Among the buildings that pre-date the road itself, the most notable is Emmanuel College's sports pavilion with its adjoining groundsman's house and stable (now number 38), completed in 1910. It was designed by the London architects Reginald Francis Wheatly and Edward Ford Duncanson, and is listed at grade II, as a rare example of a surviving Edwardian sports pavilion complete with ancillary buildings. The listing notes that its "complex roofscape of steep, sweeping pitches" lend it a "picturesque character".[3]

The road contains two of the eleven surviving Modernist-style buildings to be built in Cambridge during the 1930s.[6] The grade-II-listed number 9, by Dora Cosens for the zoologist William Homan Thorpe[7] (1936–1937),[8][6][9] is constructed in rendered brick on a square plan. The concrete roof has a roof canopy.[10] Number 19 by H. C. Hughes was built for the historian Zachary N. Brooke (1933–1934), but is considerably altered from its original state.[8][6][11] Additionally 31 Madingley Road, a grade-II-listed Modernist red-brick house by Marshall Sisson (1931–1932), stands on the east side of the junction.[12][13] (Another cluster of pre-war Modernist houses is located on nearby Conduit Head Road, on the north side of Madingley Road.[6]) In the interwar period substantial traditional-style houses such as number 7 (1937–1938) were also built on Wilberforce Road.[2] Number 11 (1950–1951) was one of the first post-war Modernist buildings in Cambridge,[14] and number 1 was built in 1965 by the architect John Youngman for himself.[8]

Centre for Mathematical Sciences

University facilities include the Centre for Mathematical Sciences on the east side,[15] built to an unusual design by Ted Cullinan. It features a central hub building with a series of six individual pavilions.[4][16][17] In The Buildings of England series, Simon Bradley describes it as among Cullinan's best work, "at once wildly imaginative and tightly disciplined", and compares the pavilions to pagodas or stupas.[17] The Cambridge University Athletics Sportsground is off the south end of Wilberforce Road,[4][18] and Emmanuel College's Sports Ground lies on the south-west side, with the Cambridge Lawn Tennis Club adjacent,[3][19] on Stacey's Lane.[20]

The Adams Road Bird Sanctuary, a local wildlife sanctuary with an artificial lake and woodland, lies between Wilberforce Road and Grange Road, and can be seen from Wilberforce Road. The lake is fed by damming Coton Stream, a tributary of Bin Brook, which continues westwards to reach Wilberforce Road,[1][18][21] turns north to run alongside the road for around half its length, and then crosses the road and flows westwards.[2] The southern end of Wilberforce Road links to the Coton Footpath, a joint cycle path and footpath, which runs westwards to the village of Coton.[1][2][22]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b c Cambridge: Royston, Duxford & Linton, OS Explorer Map 209, Ordnance Survey
  2. ^ a b c d e Philomena Guillebaud (2015). West Cambridge: the two World Wars and the inter-war lull. Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society XCVII: 179–93
  3. ^ a b c Emmanuel College Sports Pavilion, including Groundsman's house and stable, 38 Wilberforce Road, Cambridge, National Heritage List for England, Historic England (accessed 17 October 2022)
  4. ^ a b c d e Philomena Guillebaud (2015). Changes in the landscape of west Cambridge, Part V: 1945 to 2000. Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society XCVIII: 127–42
  5. ^ Cambridge City Council, Appendix 3
  6. ^ a b c d Jeremy Gould (1996). Gazetteer of Modern Houses in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Twentieth Century Architecture (2): 112–128 JSTOR 41859593
  7. ^ R. A. Hinde (1987). William Homan Thorpe. 1 April 1902–1907 April 1986. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 33: 620–639 JSTOR 769965
  8. ^ a b c Bradley & Pevsner, p. 341
  9. ^ Cambridge City Council, p. 30
  10. ^ Powers, pp. 94–95
  11. ^ Cambridge City Council, p. 31–32
  12. ^ 31 Madingley Road, National Heritage List for England, Historic England (accessed 20 September 2022)
  13. ^ Powers, pp. 214–15
  14. ^ Rawle, p. 64
  15. ^ How to find us Centre for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge (accessed 18 October 2022)
  16. ^ Jonathan Glancey (15 October 2007). A long time coming. The Guardian
  17. ^ a b Bradley & Pevsner, p. 276
  18. ^ a b University map: Wilberforce Road, University of Cambridge (accessed 18 October 2022)
  19. ^ Cambridge City Council, pp. 16, 28, 32
  20. ^ Cambridge Lawn Tennis Club (accessed 18 October 2022)
  21. ^ Cambridge City Council, pp. 13, 17
  22. ^ Cambridge City Council, p. 13

Sources

  • Simon Bradley, Nikolaus Pevsner. Cambridgeshire (The Buildings of England series) (Yale University Press; 2014) ISBN 978-0-300-20596-1
  • Cambridge City Council (May 2011). West Cambridge Conservation Area Appraisal (accessed 18 October 2022)
  • Alan Powers. Modern: The Modern Movement in Britain (Merrell; 2005) ISBN 9781858942551
  • Tim Rawle. Cambridge Architecture (2nd edn) (André Deutsch; 1993) ISBN 0-233-98818-1
[edit]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wilberforce_Road&oldid=1237890195"