Wilberforce Road
Wilberforce Road is a street in the western outskirts of Cambridge, England, which runs north–south, connecting Madingley Road with Adams Road, which runs eastwards to Grange Road. The road was built in 1933, although some of its buildings date from earlier in the 20th century. It was named for 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.
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 in west Cambridge, other than those housing the college's own agricultural workers.[1]
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St John's College sold 10 acres 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.[2]
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, 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 for 99 years on both Wilberforce and Clarkson Roads, with 17 plots having been taken up on the two streets by 1939.[1] After the Second World War, a row of maisonettes was built at the northern end, on the west side.[3]
In 1989, the university tried to build an athletics centre on a 20-acre 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.[3] 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.[3] The Centre for Mathematical Sciences was completed in around 2003, to an unusual design by Ted Cullinan, featuring a central hub building with a series of seven individual pavilions.[3][4][5]
Buildings and features
Wilberforce Road falls within the West Cambridge Conservation Area.[6] It contains several Modernist buildings, including number 9, by Dora Cosens for the zoologist William Homan Thorpe[7] (1936–37);[8][9][10] number 11 (1950–51), one of the first post-war Modernist buildings in Cambridge;[11] and number 19 by H. C. Hughes for the historian Zachary N. Brooke (1933–34).[8][9][12] There are also substantial traditional-style interwar houses such as number 7 (1937–38).[1] Number 1 was built in 1965 by the architect John Youngman for himself.[8]
University buildings include the Centre for Mathematical Sciences on the east side,[13] and the Cambridge University Athletics Sportsground off the south end of the road.[3][14] Emmanuel College's Sports Ground lies on the south-west side, with the Cambridge Lawn Tennis Club adjacent.[2][15]
The Adams Road Bird Sanctuary, a local wildlife sanctuary with a lake and woodland, lies between Wilberforce Road and Grange Road, and is visible from Wilberforce Road.[16]
References
- ^ a b c Philomena Guillebaud (2015). West Cambridge: the two World Wars and the inter-war lull. Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society XCVII: 179–93
- ^ a b 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)
- ^ 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
- ^ Cambridge City Council, pp. 19, 32
- ^ Jonathan Glancey (15 October 2007). A long time coming. The Guardian
- ^ Cambridge City Council, Appendix 3
- ^ R. A. Hinde (1987). William Homan Thorpe. 1 April 1902–7 April 1986. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 33: 620–639 JSTOR 769965
- ^ a b c Bradley & Pevsner, p. 341
- ^ a b Jeremy Gould (1996). Gazetteer of Modern Houses in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Twentieth Century Architecture (2): 112–128 JSTOR 41859593
- ^ Cambridge City Council, p. 30
- ^ Rawle, p. 64
- ^ Cambridge City Council, p. 31–32
- ^ How to find us Centre for Mathematical Sciences, University of Cambridge (accessed 18 October 2022)
- ^ Wilberforce Road (map), University of Cambridge (accessed 18 October 2022)
- ^ Cambridge City Council, pp. 16, 28, 32
- ^ Cambridge City Council, pp. 13, 17
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)
- Tim Rawle. Cambridge Architecture (2nd edn) (André Deutsch; 1993) ISBN 0-233-98818-1