Who lived and worked on Quayside

Where this comes from

Most of this page rests on Capturing Cambridge, the Museum of Cambridge's project, whose volunteers gather census returns and directories. Its Quayside entry leans on a privately printed parish history by T. E. Faber, which we haven't seen ourselves. Read this as a set of glimpses rather than a full history.

The chantry cottages and the Fords' brewhouse

The earliest buildings known here, from about the 14th century, were two cottages belonging to one of St Clement's chantries. Their end shows how the Reformation worked on the ground. Shortly before 1547, with the king threatening confiscation, they went in a last-minute lease to George Parker. Around 1548 they were granted, with other chantry estates, to Sir Thomas Wendye and John Barton.

A nearby yard was used for barrel making or brewing by John Ford, who died in 1521. His widow Eleyne married a Thomas Bell, who died six months later. Ten years on she left "my brewhouse" to her son Thomas, and he died a year after that, leaving it to his wife Alis. All three Fords asked to be buried in St Clement's. By 1573 the yard had at least one warehouse.

The pubs

A map built from 1780s building plans and the 1886 Ordnance Survey shows how closely pubs packed this short stretch:

• The Half Moon Inn, whose west-facing building counted as Quayside for most of the 19th century
• A house first called the Black Boy, later the Anchor
• The Jolly Waterman, at 3 Quayside
• The Union, also known as the Cock Ale House
• The Ship

Dates for each are hard to pin down, and the map mixes two periods, so they weren't necessarily all open at once. None survives under these names on Quayside now, as far as we can tell.

Quayside in 1861

The census that year gives a snapshot of mixed lives:

• No. 1: William Potts, 54, brewer, born in Ramsey
• No. 2: vacant
• No. 3: David Dant, 53, waterman, born in St Ives
• No. 5: M. Kirby, 60, gentlewoman; Henry Jarman, 42, slater; Daniel Coyall, 50, farm labourer
• No. 6: Mary Ann Sims, 33, laundress
• No. 7: Thomas Mann, 63, publican, born in Suffolk

Three names share No. 5, with a gentlewoman listed beside a labourer. Only one waterman appears, 16 years after the railway came. Quayside's river trade had clearly shrunk, although this list may not be complete.

Fisher's Lane, over the bridge

Fisher's Lane, also called Rea Lane after an old name for the river, was the Quayside's neighbour on the Magdalene Street side. In 1861 it housed two laundresses, a weaver, a dressmaker, a nurse and Isaac Strange, boat builder. A caption to a photograph of about 1880 says bargees lodged there.

The Fry family shows both the value and the trouble of census records. John Fry, a smith, appears from 1871 to 1901. His son Frank goes from a boy of 8 to broker's porter to packer of fish. But John is 37 in 1871, 47 in 1881, 56 in 1891 and 68 in 1901, and his birthplace moves from Somerset to Cambridge. Either the clerks slipped or the family guessed. He died in 1906.

By 1913 Frederick W. Bullen ran Bullen and Co's boatyard at No. 1, with William Child, shoeing smith, at No. 7. The boatyard was still there to be photographed in 1954.

From wharves to garages

The 1913 directory for Quayside lists F. Lister, whitesmith, B. Jolley and Sons' furniture warehouses, and G. T. Cain's motor works and garage. So cars had arrived on the old wharf within a few years of punts arriving on the river.

By 1962 the list reads very differently: Firestone Tyre and Rubber, a Magdalene College hostel, the Cambridge University Senior Training Corps and Rifle Association, Vacuum Research Ltd, Ernest Gentle the motor trimmer, and S. J. Tyrrell's boatyard. A boatyard remained, but the place was now a jumble of light industry, university bodies and garages.

A K6 telephone kiosk from the 1930s also stands here. It's a listed building in its own right.

Boat builders along the river

Quayside's yards were part of a wider trade. H. C. Banham, on Cam Road, built motor boats for the Russian navy and seaplane floats in the First World War, and in the Second built whalers, fast launches and prototype radar structures for Pye. Cam Road was demolished in 1969, and Banham's moved to a new site.

What happened next

Then the record thins, at least for us. The present buildings carry the date 1989, on a stone also bearing Magdalene's motto, and one property listing gives a build period of 1983 to 1989. We haven't yet found the planning file, so we can't tell you when each of these occupants left, or what was knocked down when. If you know, please email corrections at puntyard dot com.

Sources

• Capturing Cambridge (Museum of Cambridge), Quayside, Bridge Street. Used for the chantry cottages, the Fords, the pubs, the 1861 census and the 1913 and 1962 directories.
• Capturing Cambridge (Museum of Cambridge), Fisher's Lane, Magdalene Street. Used for the residents, the Frys and Bullen's boatyard.
• Capturing Cambridge (Museum of Cambridge), H C Banham, Cam Road. Used for Banham's wartime work.

Sources checked October 2026.