Cambridge Cattle Market
This history trail audio is narrated by the poet Michael Rosen, with script researched by Helen Weinstein and the team at Historyworks. This recording is part of a series of Cambridge history trails which have lyrics inspired by 'history beneath our feat' performed by local schoolchildren, with poems by the top poet Michael Rosen and songs by the funny team at CBBC's songwriters commissioned by Historyworks. To find more trails and further information, go to http://www.creatingmycambridge.com/trails
This is the story of the Cattle Market, which started close to the market place in Anglo Saxon times, then went north to be near river transportation, and then moved to a huge site by the station in 1885 to take advantage of the Victorian age of rail travel.
In Victorian times, markets developed from selling locally to becoming national and international - not only for industrial goods made in Cambridge - (like Headly’s foundry making iron railings and weather vanes and train tracks and fixings) - but also for selling fresh goods, such as the relatively short sell-by- date of animals like chickens and beef cattle!
Whilst the central market in Cambridge sold groceries to the public - (like fruit and vegetables, eggs and cheese, fish and poultry and meat directly to customers), - nearby there were places for these products to be sold between farmers and the grocers and wholesalers who sold them on to shops and butchers, hotels and pubs and canteens.
In Victorian Cambridge most of these agricultural goods were sold at two venues. First, at the Corn Exchange which was the market for grain to make bread and other baked goods. Second, at the Cattle Market which sold live animals such as pigs, cows, sheep, chickens; and close to Christmas there would be turkeys and geese sold there too!
When the railways arrived in Cambridge the Cattle Market was on the opposite side of town, on Pound Hill in the Castle area. So at the very time the station opened in 1845, offering up the prospect of speedy travel for goods in wagons, the Cattle market was located far away on the hill to the north of Cambridge, the other side of the Cam, which would have been handy for River transportation, but not for rail. So once the railways opened, then livestock operators and auctioneers started to have cattle pens off Hills Road to be close to the station, so effectively there was no longer ONE Cattle Market, and it was harder for the council to check on and regulate the terms and conditions of sale.
Therefore, after lots of negotiations, Cambridge City council purchased a huge site for the Cattle Market (an extensive plot of almost 14 acres, on land between Cherry Hinton Road and Hills Road which had been owned by Jesus College). On old photographs you can see a wide curving paved road for the cattle to walk off Hills Road on their own ramp down to the Cattle Market. Maps of the station area then show how there were train track sidings directly connecting the main lines to the Cattle Market, so that cows and sheep and pigs could be moved in wagons to and from the Cattle Market directly by rail.
The engineering company who owned the Eagle Foundry, Headlys, made all the railings for the animal pens and their water troughs locally at their business on Mill Road. The pens at the market could hold 700 bulls and up to 2000 pigs or sheep at one time, so it was extremely noisy and smelly! The market was very successful with live beasts coming from Scotland in the north and Ireland to the west, put up for auction in Cambridge, and then the bulk of the meat sold off for public consumption in London. It became by far the largest cattle market in East Anglia and hosted the popular Easter Bank Holiday Market for the region.
In its heyday hundreds of live cattle would be transported by train and ship to the market from Scotland and Ireland, every week. The site operated until 1990, but with the rise of supermarkets, the activities of livestock markets selling independently declined, therefore the city council decided to develop the area to create leisure facilities for local people. The site which was once covered in cattle pens now has a cinema and a bowling alley and cafes.
Importantly, it also has a performance space outside and the three spaces at the ‘Cambridge Junction’ cultural venue, which include a gig hall; and also a theatre for drama and dance performances; and a space for spoken word gigs and stand-up comedy; now well known for its youth programme, and its tag line: where art meets life!