Old plans of Cambridge, 1574-1798, by Richard Lyne, George Braun, John Hamond, Thomas Fuller, David Loggan and William Custance

Front matter

CORNELL

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

Part I : Text With Numerous Illustrations

CAMBRIDGE BOWES & BOWES

1 92 1

TO THE MEMORY OF

JOHN WILLIS CLARK

AND

ROBERT BOWES

'THE ONLY BEGETTERS' OF A WORK

WHICH THE MEASURE OF THEIR DAYS GRANTED THEM NOT TO SEE

'ABSOLUTE IN ITS NUMBERS,' AS THEY CONCEIVED IT.

is shown at the east end of the Chapel, giving communication between this building and the Entrance Court. In Hamond's day this had no existence, and the only entrance to the building was in S. John's Lane.

Beyond the screens we see a passage with a tennis court on its northern side, and on the southern side a small quadrangle, which was built about 1526 and removed about 1 60 1, when the Second Court was being built. In the northern range of this quadrangle was the Master's gallery. The Lodge was between the northern end of the Hall and the Chapel and, except through the Hall, there was no interior communication between it and the gallery. A wing of the Lodge extends westward from the dais end of the Hall, and at its western end we see the Master's turret. Beyond this end of the Lodge is the Master's garden and an extensive orchard reaching to the river bank. Between the orchard and the Bowling Green of Trinity is a rectangular piece of open ground, which is now occupied by the southern parts of the second and third courts. A large house with adjoining smaller buildings stands on the river bank. Next to the house is the bridge, Hamond's drawing of which shows that it was a wooden structure, and so it is pictured by Loggan. It is barred by an arched gate of timber at the eastern end. S. John's, Queens' and King's were the only colleges which possessed bridges in the sixteenth century, as they alone had grounds on both sides of the river.

In the space which is bounded by S. John's Lane, Bridge Street and the river Hamond shows a multitude of houses without any noticeable feature. Some are

Hist. ii. p. 247 shows that there were three storeys. Loggan's view agrees with Hamond in showing only one chimney, which was at the western end.

disposed about four-sided courts, others are ranged along alleys which run from Bridge Street to the river. At the end of S. John's Lane we see a masted "keel" and a small boat moored to the bank, and near it the arm of a crane projecting over the water. It is noteworthy that in his view of S. John's College Loggan shows a string of barges which are being towed by a man in a row-boat, a covered "tilt" hauling timber and poled up stream by two men, and another barge towed from the bank. Above the bridge were several stathes, one of which, on the northern bank, still exists at the end of the lane which in medieval times, as now, was called Fisher's Lane. Just at this point Lyne shows a fishing-boat, in mid-stream, dragging a net.

Hamond gives little indication of the appearance of the Great Brigge ; it is evidently made of timber, has wooden railings with high posts, and seemingly has two piers in the stream. Sailing and row-boats are moored to the south bank below it.

There are no noteworthy features on the western side of Magdalene Street until we come to the church of 5. Peter (Sheet 3). It has a nave, a western tower and spire, a porch near the western end of the south wall, three windows in the same wall and a small door near its eastern end, and an eastern window. In 1 742, when Cole described the church, there was a chancel and a south aisle, neither of which appears in Hamond's view. Beyond the churchyard is S. Peter's Lane, leading to the open ground called Pound Green, which was reckoned as part of the Western Field of Cambridge and took its name from a pound, which existed on the western side of the lane so lately as 1909. This Green is represented as descending the slope of the hill to a

7—2

Preface

THE reproductions of the Six Old Plans of Cambridge which are contained in the Portfolio were announced in May 1909 as to be issued with accompanying description by the late Mr J. W. Clark, Registrary of the University. The death of Mr Clark and the interruption of the War have caused a long delay in the completion of the work as originally designed.

At the time of his death Mr Clark had written and corrected for the press the descriptions of the plans of Lyne and Braunius, but had only brought his account of Hamond's plan, which is the most interesting and valuable of the series, as far as the description of the site of Pembroke Hall- and the adjoining grounds. I have made no alterations in his work, except by adding a few notes distinguished by enclosing brackets, and have endeavoured, as far as was possible, to continue it on the lines therein indicated.

It is greatly to be regretted that Mr Clark did not live to complete the design which had been the labour and delight of his last years. The account which he has given in the Architectural History (I, Introduction, pp. ci — civ) of Hamond's plan indicates the importance which he attached to it, though when that work was written, he was unaware of the existence of the extremely interesting central Sheet which came to him from the collection of the late Mr J. E. Foster and is now in the Bodleian Library. The issue of these plans vi PREFACE

was to be the corollary of Mr Clark's great Architectural History of Cambridge ( 1 886), and no other man had the title or the capacity to attempt what he foreshadowed in that work.

Since 1909 death has also removed Professor McKenny Hughes and Sir William Hope, who had done much to illustrate the history and antiquities of Cambridge and whose assistance in their several departments of knowledge would have been invaluable in continuing Mr Clark's work.

Professor Marr has very kindly furnished for the Introduction the section on the Geology of Cambridge, and for valuable assistance in other matters I am indebted to the Reverend Dr Stokes, Mr G. J. Gray and Mr George Goode, M.A., of the University Library. I also gratefully record the great interest shown by the late Mr Robert Bowes in the beginning and continuation of the work, and the patience with which he submitted to the long delay in its publication. To his friendly help I owe only less than to Mr Clark himself. My part has been one of labour, but also of pleasure and love.

ARTHUR GRAY

February 17, 192 1

PUBLISHERS' NOTE

For permission to photograph Hamond's Plan in the Bodleian Library (the only known complete copy, from which our reproduction is taken), we are indebted to the late E. W. B. Nicholson, M.A., Bodley's Librarian. Our thanks are also due to the Syndics of the Cambridge University Press, the Council of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society.and Messrs. Macmillan&Co., Ltd., for the loan of illustrations from various publications, which are reproduced in the text of this work. Last but not least, we wish to acknowledge the courtesy and patience shown by the University Press and the care taken by their staff in connection with a work which commenced some fourteen years ago.

BOWES & BOWES

PART I: TEXT CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION xi

THE RIVER AT CAMBRIDGE xi

THE CASTLE xvii

THE KING'S DITCH xxiii

THE GEOLOGY OF CAMBRIDGE .... xxx

THE ARMS OF THE UNIVERSITY AND THE TOWN . xxxvi

CHAP.

I. BIRD'S-EYE VIEW BY RICHARD LYNE, 1574 . i

II. BIRD'S-EYE VIEW FROM GEORGE BRAUN'S

CIVITATES ORBIS TERRA RUM, 1575 . . 18

III. PLAN BY JOHN HAMOND, 1592 .... 23

IV. BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF 1634 FROM THOMAS

FULLER'S HISTOR Y OF THE UNIVERSITY 131

V. SURVEY BY DAVID LOGGAN, 1688 . . .136 VI. SURVEY BY WILLIAM CUSTANCE, 1798 . . 149

INDEX 152 b2

PLANS CONTAINED IN THE PORTFOLIO

I. The bird's-eye view drawn by Richard Lyne in 1574, to illustrate the History of the University by Dr John Keys, or Caius, which was published in that year. The view is 16J inches high by li| inches wide.

II. The bird's-eye view from George Braun's Civitates Orbis Terrarum, 1575, as it appears in Jansson's Urbium Septentrionalium EuropcB Tabula, Amsterdam, n.d.

III. The plan by John Hamond, of Clare Hall, dated 22 February, 1592. This is a bird's-eye view in nine sheets, drawn after a careful survey, made by Hamond himself. This plan is 3 feet io| inches high by 2 feet 10^ inches wide. It is accompanied by a reproduction of the more perfect central sheet (No. 9) and a key plan to the several sheets.

IV. The bird's-eye view annexed to the History of the University of Cambridge, by Thomas Fuller, dated 1634. This view is 13^ inches high by \o\ inches wide.

V. The survey made by David Loggan for his Cantabrigia Illustrata, and dated 1688, in two sheets. This survey is 15J inches high by 20^ inches wide.

VI. The survey made by William Custance, Cambridge, and published for him 21 May, 1798.

VII. A key-plan, based on the Ordnance Survey, to show the changes which have taken place since the above ancient plans were drawn.

Introduction

THE RIVER AT CAMBRIDGE

The river, which beneath the Castle Hill, divides Cambridge into a northern and a southern town, is formed by the confluence of two principal streams which unite about three miles above the town, beyond the village of Trumpington. The eastern of these tributaries comes from sources near Newport, in Essex : the western has its main spring at Ashwell, in Hertfordshire. A third branch joins the united stream just above the weir at Trumpington and rises at Bourn in Cambridgeshire. Within the borough limits a fourth affluent, called the Binn Brook, falls into the river, on its western side, a short distance above the Great Bridge. Except by small boats the river was never navigable beyond the mill-weirs above Queens' College and at Newnham.

The ancient name of the river was Grante, or Granta. Grante is the name given to it by Felix of Crowland (715 — 730) in his Life of St Guthlac. The suffixed e represents the Anglo-Saxon ed, or /, meaning "water." In the Anglo-Saxon version of Bede's Ecclesiastical History (a translation made before 900) the river is called " Granta stream." Bede, writing of the year 673, describes the site of the town as "a desolate little city," and calls it Grantacaestir. The first mention of the place after the town came into being is in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, under the year 875, and it was then known as Grantebrycge. The bridge was, no doubt, a wooden structure and had evidently come into existence between 673 and 875^

In deeds of the later middle ages the name given to the river is often "the Ree," or "the Ee," and in and after 1372 it

' In a paper on The Ford and Bridge of Cambridge, C. A.S. Proc. and Comnz. xiv. pp. 126 — 139 (A. Gray), reasons are given for supposing that Offa, king of Mercia (758 — 796), was the builder of the bridge.

xii INTRODUCTION

appears as "the Cante^" : but "Granta" also continued in use. With slight variations in spelling Grantebrige was in sole use as the town's name until 1 142, and it was partially used until 1400. The earliest instances of the use of the name Cantebrig occur in the latter part of the twelfth century. The modern spelling, Cambridge, with euphonic change of nt to ni, does not occur in documents until after 1400. Cam, as the river's name, does not appear until about i6oo^

The plans of Lyne and Hamond show the course of the river from points somewhat above the two mills near Queens' College and that at Newnham. These mills were of very ancient origin. At the time of the Domesday Survey Cambridge had two mills — one belonging to the Abbot of Ely, the other to Count Alan, a Breton follower of the Conqueror. Picot, the sheriff, had also erected three mills, but it seems that at least one of them was destroyed by the King's order on the ground that it interfered with some other onel It is likely that Picot's mill, or mills, occupied the site of that which afterwards was known as the King's Mill: in the reign of Henry II the Sheriff of Cambridgeshire accounted at the royal exchequer for a mill. The Abbot's Mill became the Bishop's Mill after 1 109, when the abbacy of Ely was converted into a bishopric. In the Survey of the Town, made in 1278, there is mention of three mills — the King's, the Bishop's, and a third belonging to Sir William de Mortimer. The last was evidently the mill at Newnham, for it was subject to tithe to Grantchester parish, in which parish part of it is contained at the present day*. In process of time the three mills were acquired by the burgesses,

' "Cante" rimes with "Universitie" in some verses of Lydgate printed in Mullinger's The University of Cambridge, i. Appendix A, p. 636.

^ In his monograph, The Place Names of Cambridgeshire, C. A. S. 8vo. Publications, xxxvi., and in a later article, C. A. S. Proc. and Comm. xiv. pp. iii — 122, the late Professor Skeat has given the fullest account of the changes which the names of the town and river have undergone.

3 Dr Stokes in his Communication on The Old Mills of Cambridge (C. A.S. Proc. and Comm. xiv. p. 182) following a suggestion of Professor Maitland, Township and Borough, p. 190, thinks that Picot only erected a third mill, in addition to the other two : but the plurals auferunt and destruunt in the passage from Domesday Book make this interpretation untenable.

■• Stokes, as above, p. 184.

THE RIVER AT CAMBRIDGE xiii

and the King's and Bishop's Mills, which adjoined one another, at last were contained under one roof, and are so represented in the plans of Lyne and Hamond, who mark the combined buildings as the King's Mill. Newnham Mill belonged to the Mortimer family, who held the manor of Newnham, and from them it passed to Gonvile Hall and was afterwards leased to the Town authorities \

At the present day the water is brought to the mills by two cuts which are drawn from the upper river at the south end of Sheep's Green. It is unknown when these cuts were made, but undoubtedly they are of great antiquity. Their banks are considerably higher than the surface of Sheep's Green, at which low level are to be seen many old channels, which represent the natural courses of the river: Hamond's plan shows several of them. In Coe Fen, which lies on the eastern side of the cut leading to the King's Mill, Lyne marks the Vicar's Brook, which came from Trumpington Ford, at the first milestone on the London Road, and joined the river, as it still does, opposite what is called Robinson Crusoe's Island. About the year 1610 a channel was cut from this brook, along which the water was carried to the King's Ditch at the crossing of Trumpington Street and Mill Lane. In the same year in which Lyne's plan was made (1574), Dr Feme, Master of Peterhouse, writing to Lord Burghley, advocated this diversion as a means of scouring the ditch''.

Below the Mill Pit of the King's Mill both Lyne and Hamond show that the river followed its present course. But there are clear indications in both plans that this course, in great part, was not the only, nor indeed the natural one. The present straightened channel and the steepness of its banks on the eastern side are demonstrative of artificial adaptation. If the

^ The history of the mills is extremely obscure. Even the exhaustive evidence given by Dr Stokes in the work just cited fails to throw much light on their origin, ownership and subsequent transferences. The Mortimers were connected with the Zouche family, and there was a Zouche's Mill— whether or not to be identified with Newnham Mill is not clear. There seem to have been two mills at Newnham, or perhaps only two mill-wheels, as Hamond's plan indicates. Lyne's plan in an eccentric way shows a mill on the Grantchester bank extending only half-way across the cut. " See pp. 2, 3.

xiv INTRODUCTION

river pursued its natural course, as it still does in times of exceptional flood, it would spread itself over the ground between its present western bank and the road which leads from Newnham to Westminster College. These grounds are still in parts very little raised above the river surface, and there is historical evidence that, before they were converted into College gardens, their level was considerably lower than it is to-day ^ Of the older courses of, the river the two plans furnish valuable evidence. Half-way between the Mill Pit at Newnham and that which is below the King's Mill Hamond shows an island, and hereabouts, at a point in the northern bank, both plans show a branch of the river which passes under the western of the two Small Bridges, and, skirting the western side of Queens' College over-river grounds, joins the present river course opposite Bodley's Building in King's College. It is now an insignificant and stagnant trench, but it was a considerable waterway in 1474, when the Town granted to Queens' College the land which is now the Fellows' Garden. In the conveyance the ground is described as lying between the common river coming down from the King's and Bishop's Mills and the river running down from Newnham Mill^: moreover the mayor and bailiffs reserved to themselves the right of coming in boats along either river. At the same time the College undertook to widen the river on the eastern side of this ground, so that it should be 51 feet in breadth, which is its present width. That this eastern branch of the river existed in early times is probable^: but an inspection of the Ordnance map at once suggests that, in its present width and direction, this branch is an artificial prolongation of the channel above the King's MilH.

' Evidence of the raising of these grounds is collected in The Dual Origin of the Town of Cambridge, C.A.S. Quarto Publications, 1908, pp. 18 — 20 (A. Gray).

•'' In 1396 we read of the existence of two bridges, known as Small Bridges, one of which was in the position of the present bridge, at the end of Silver Street, the other spanning the stream which crossed the road near the house which is now called the Granary. They were wooden structures, and the latter of them, as shown by Lyne and Hamond, was unprotected by a hand-rail.

^ In 1756, when the foundation of the Essex building of Queens' College was being prepared, the kerb of a well was discovered within the eastern arm of the river, and two feet below its bed.

THE RIVER AT CAMBRIDGE xv

There is evidence that all the colleges between Queens' and St John's have been built on ground which has been artificially raised, and that, before the erection of the second court of Queens' College, no attempt was made to build on the eastern bank\ A deed of the middle of the thirteenth century concerning a tenement in Mill Street, near the present site of Clare College, mentions that it was 220 feet distant from a trench (fossatumy. As the distance from Mill Street to the river was about 4(X) feet this fossatum was clearly not the main channel, but 1 80 feet east of it. Doubtless it was the trench which was discovered in 1889, when the Latham building of Trinity Hall was built*.

A continuation of this trench, no doubt, is to be found in the channel, shown by Lyne and Hamond, which was the eastern boundary of the island called Garret Hostel Green. Lyne makes it branch from the main river at a point behind Clare Hall. Hamond places its divergence just above Garret Hostel Bridge. The Ditch was navigable, for in the fourteenth century there were several hithes on its eastern side, and the modification of it which was granted to Michaelhouse was for the purpose of bringing merchandise to the College. Hamond marks the northern outlet of the Ditch at a point nearly corresponding to the north-west corner of Trinity College Library : but at an earlier date it was further north and near the kitchen garden of the Master of Trinity College*.

In the days of Lyne and Hamond the grounds on the western side of the river, between Queens' College Garden and the New Court of St John's College, retained the swampy character which they had from the earliest times in the history of the Town. Though there was no lock on Jesus Green the "shelves" which were an obstruction to navigation in the reign of Elizabeth (1578)^ probably held up the water to something

1 See the very valuable Communication by Professor Hughes on Superficial Deposits under Cambridge, C.A.S. Proc. and Covim. xi. pp. 393 — 4'23.

' See The Priory of St Radegund, Cambridge (A. Gray), C.A.S. 8vo. Publications, 1898, charter 187 on p. no.

^ Maiden, History of Trinity Hall, pp. 23, 24.

■• Arch. Hist. ii. pp. 405—409. ^ Cooper, Annals, ii. 366.

xvi INTRODUCTION

like its present level. No houses existed near this western bank, and no hithes were placed on it: before the College bridges were built no bridge crossed the main river between Queens' College and the Great Bridge. Garret Hostel Bridge is shown in Lyne's plan (1574), and is first mentioned in 15201. Lyne shows it as a wooden bridge with a double rail, and it merely connects the eastern bank with Garret Hostel Green : a plank bridge crosses the main stream between the Green and the western bank. Evidence of the original swampy nature of the ground is seen in the large pond, or lake, which Hamond shows in the over-river grounds of King's College, and in the numerous fish ponds which cover the site of the New Court of St John's College.

It may be noticed that in Hamond's plan the college grounds on the eastern bank are all fenced next the river by walls, mostly embattled. The only break in their continuity is at the Town ground near Garret Hostel Bridge. The need for such walls is not apparent at the present day. But their object is explained by a provision in the Act of Parliament of 1703 for improving the navigation of the Cam. Therein it is enacted that as of necessity barges and lighters must be haled against the stream by men or horses it should be lawful for the watermen to go without hindrance on the lands near the river''. Though the hithes behind the colleges had disappeared before Hamond's time there was still a large river traffic with the mills. Loggan's view of St John's College shows several barges proceeding up stream, and one of them is towed by a man on the eastern bank. The walls in the plans of Lyne and Hamond approach the waterside so closely that the haling-way must have been narrow, and it was altogether interrupted by the buildings at Queens' College which stand on the brink of the river. In Ackerman's view of Clare Hall (181 5) a string of barges is being drawn up stream by a man and horse who are in the middle of the river.

' Cooper, Annals, i. 304. 2 /|jj^_ jy_ ^^

ARTHUR GRAY

THE CASTLE

[For more detailed accounts of the Castle and Roman castrum the reader is referred to the Communications in C. A.S. Proceedings by Professor Hughes, On the Castle Hill, viii. PP- 173 — 212; by Sir William Hope, The Norman Origin of Cambridge Castle, xi. pp. 324 — 345; and by myself, On the Watercourse called Cambridge, ix. pp. 61 — 76: also to Professor C. C. Babington's Ancient Cambridgeshire, C. A. S. 8vo. Publications, xx. 1883, and to articles by Professor Hughes, The Castle Hill, ^nA by myself. The Coffin Stone of Etheldreda, in Fasciculus J. W. Clark Dicatus, 1909, pp. 240 — 264. These works are referred to under their titles in the footnotes to this section. A. G.]

The Castle mound and the earthworks adjoining it were constructed on a natural promontory which forms the end of a terrace reaching from Girton College and the Observatory and abuts on the river near the Great Bridge. This promontory consists of chalk overlying a thick bed of gault. At its end the chalk was cut away to form a steeper scarp, and the material was thrown up on the top to form the mounds

Cambridge, as its name implies, was the Town of the Bridge, not the Town of the Castle. The reason is obvious. There is evidence of the existence of the Bridge in Saxon times : the Castle was the erection of the Normans.

But before the Saxon town came into existence there was undoubtedly a Roman castrum near the river and presumably on its northern bank. Bede" calls the place Grantaczestir, and the Anglo-Saxon translation of his Ecclesiastical History (written in the ninth century) says that it was " by Gran ta stream." The same translation describes the site in 689 as " a ruined Chester," clearly implying its Roman origin. Both Bede and his translator tell us that it was walled with masonry. Portions

' Professor Hughes clearly explains the natural and artificial features of the Castle Hill in his Communication, C.A.S. Proc. and Comm. viii. pp. 173—175. ^ Ecclesiastical History, iv. 19.

xviii INTRODUCTION

of a wall, consisting of Roman bricks, flints and ragstone, were discovered in 1804 "near the turnpike gate leading to Huntingdon," i.e. near the point where the Histon Road diverges from the Huntingdon Road\ The castrum was perhaps a walled town rather than a military camp. There can be little doubt that the Castle site was contained in it, though it did not occupy the whole of it. The raised terrace in Magdalene College grounds, though mainly of much later construction, very likely occupies the position of the southern rampart, and the earthwork visible on Mount Pleasant seems to be part of the vallum on the western side of the castrum. The Roman road leading to Huntingdon, which was the western boundary of the Conqueror's Castle, thus ran through the Roman camp, dividing it into two nearly equal halves ^

This is hardly the place to discuss the various theories which have been advanced as to the character and dimensions of the Roman camp and the existence of a pre-Roman stronghold on the site. Nor need anything be said about a Saxon fortress which some have supposed to have existed on the site of the Norman Castle. Some timbered structure may possibly have stood there before the Conquest : that it did exist there is no particle of evidence, historical or material, to show^

Castles, the name and the things, were introduced by the Normans. At Cambridge both Castle and Bridge were controlled by the King's officer, the sheriff, and were maintained by taxes, called castle- ward and pontage, which were levied

' See the account of these and other supposed Roman remains in the Castle area quoted by Professor Hughes in his Communication already cited, p. 189.

^ In Hamond's plan the bank on Mount Pleasant is indicated. Sir W. Hope, in C.A.S. Proc. and Comm., ut supra, gives a suggested plan of the Castle and Roman camp. The camp occupied a somewhat steep slope, rising from 32 feet above Ordnance Level at the crossing of Castle Street and Chesterton Lane to 70 feet where the northern rampart crossed the Huntingdon Road.

3 The late Professor Hughes strongly maintained that a Saxon fortress, which he called a burh, existed on the Castle mound in the ninth and following centuries. He relied on a theory, since discredited, of Mr G. T. Clark in his Medieval Military Architecture in England that the burhs erected in the reign of Edward the Elder were of the nature of castles. The evidence collected by Sir W. Hope is conclusive that a burh was not a fortress but a fortified town. Mr AUcroft in his Earthwork in England, p. 381, draws attention to the complete absence of any traces in England of fortresses which can be ascribed to early Saxon times.

THE CASTLE xix

not on the townsmen but on particular estates in the district. It has often been remarked, as a feature that looks more primitive than the Conquest, that the Castle is not situated within the limits of the borough, but is contained in the parish of Chesterton. But no inference as to the existence of a pre- Norman castle can be drawn from the circumstance. The exclusion of the castle from the borough was a Norman arrangement, of which other examples are seen at York, Colchester and Norwich. In the Castle and its maintenance the townsmen had no part or lot. Clearly its purpose was not to defend but to over-awe the town.

According to Orderic the Conqueror planted castles at Cambridge, Lincoln and Huntingdon in 1068. In the Domesday Survey it is stated that the first of the ten wards into which the town was divided was reckoned as two in the Confessor's time, but that 27 houses in it were destroyed to make the Castle. Similar destructions for the same object are recorded in the Survey at other towns^ Evidently the Castle was new and did not take the place of an earlier fortress.