The Cambridge Map Project Episode 1: D4, Newnham

 

The Cambridge Map and Lockdown 3

Lockdown three has brought back almost identical restrictions to the first lockdown in March last year. The message on leaving the house for exercise, similar to before, is to ‘stay local’. ‘Local’ is not clearly defined in statute but in the guidance somewhere it talks about staying within your town, village or the part of the City you live in. Any clarity this might have provided was muddied when Boris Johnson was seen cycling seven miles from Downing Street in the Olympic Park. It was not made clear if he actually cycled there or if he was driven or if it mattered either way. Stratford and Westminster are not usually considered the same part of London, but Boris was deemed not to have broken any rules. Meanwhile, in the same week two women from Ashby-De-La-Zouch were found to have breached the regulations and fined after driving 5 miles from where they lived, to go for a walk at a (possibly) local beauty spot. They had brought coffee which they were told was not allowed because it was classed as a ‘picnic’. I’m not sure if their crime was the driving to the beauty spot, the coffee or because they were judged, League of Gentlemen style, as ‘not local’ to the location.

During the weeks leading up to and through Christmas I had been feeling an increasing sense of lethargy and dis-interestedness, which was magnified by the onset of Lockdown three. In a belated start to the New Year, I decided that I needed a new method to get out and walk within the permitted boundaries of ‘local’.

A rummage in the map draw and I ‘rediscovered’ a 1980 Ordinance Survey map of Cambridge, from the same series as the Ipswich Town Map that I used as the basis for a walk a while ago. The only other map in the series as far as I know is of Southampton, a place definitely not local and I don’t (yet) have the map anyway. The covers of all three maps in the series feature ‘posterised’ images of local landmarks on their front covers.  The Cambridge one has a closeup angular view of Kings College chapel, apparently from the perspective of somebody laying on the grass outside and seeing the building through the prism of 1970s special effects from Beat Club or Top of The Pops.

The scale of the map is ideal for my purposes. Each grid square covers a large enough area to contain sufficient things of interest but one small enough to be do-able easily in an afternoon or morning. All are within reasonable walking or cycling distance from where I live, at least at the weekend when work won’t get in the way. The plan is to select a grid square using random number generators before setting out. A more local but similar idea to the Barnett’s Map project that I started around this time last year but was swiftly halted due to Covid, using the idea of a ‘catapult’ to randomly determine the vicinity of the walk.

Whilst Cambridge is technically a City, I reckon since it is smaller than some towns, let alone any major city, anywhere within its boundary can be considered local to me. The 1980s map will be used as a guide, identifying points of interest that may or may not still exist within the grid square boundary of the walk. New points of interest or possibly disinterest that have appeared since the point in time of the map will certainly be encountered given the level of development and change in the intervening years in parts of the City. The walking, in order to qualify as permitted exercise and not attract attention of the police or others, will have to involve minimal stopping or prolonged loitering at any point of interest. How regular, in both timing and content these walks turn out to be is not predetermined.

Preamble

The random number generator for the first walk selected map square D4. This covers an area bifurcated by Barton Road, with part the suburb of ‘Newnham Croft’ on the South side and part of the University dominated area around Grange Road to the North. The whole area is within the council ward of Newnham, the term also used for the immediate surrounding area in the local vernacular.

The suburb of Newnham Croft is one of the most well-off parts of a well-off but particularly un-equal city. I always think of it as Cambridge’s equivalent of Hampstead or Highgate. As well as being well off, it is also a conservation area. I wasn’t sure if the streets within my map square strictly as part of Newnham Croft, being a bit cut off from the main residential area located in the adjacent square, or if they were simply part of ‘Newnham’. Maybe this would become apparent.

Amble

I began at the corner of Barton Road and Kings Road outside a building that used to be the Hat and Feathers Pub until about 2010. It is not easily recognisable as a former pub, having been completely striped of any external paraphernalia hinting at its former life. I only recall visiting it once, as a teenager, when a friend living around the corner on Selwyn Road had a party. We were ordered to contribute to the swear box several times soon after our arrival. Other than that, I remember very little about the pub. Still, any pub lost to flats, even one with puritanical views on the use of language, is to be mourned and I stood for a few seconds to pay my respects

Across the street, a laminated advert for a mattress sale was attached to a telegraph pole. These are currently prolific throughout Cambridge. They seem to have superseded a previous epidemic of similar notices offering outdoor benches of the type normally found in pub gardens. Maybe these items have become excess due to a downturn in sales of mattresses to hotels and benches to pubs during Covid and there is cheap surplus stock to be had. I imagined a dodgy bloke in a lock-up full of these items, waiting for his mobile to ring after a morning stapling notices to posts around town, a low-level disaster capitalist spawned by Corona Virus.

I turned into Selwyn Road, a street I was only vaguely familiar with from the previously mentioned party and couple of other visits to the same friend’s house around the same time. The street was devoid of people. There seemed to be a clear divide between sides of the road, one made up of modest sized terraced houses but ones which were in keeping with the general ambience found in the main bit if Newnham Croft. The houses on other side of the road by contrast, while not exactly resembling the one depicted in the ‘22 Shit Street’ ceramic ornament Viz used to sell, were much less in keeping with a middle-class conservation area. It more resembled part of a decent post war council estate. A taxi was parked in one drive, and on another house the front door window was boarded up with plywood. The front gardens were lived in, not twee. The contrast between both sides of the street was subtle, but marked and an indicator of a more sensible era when council housing was widespread enough even to appear in posher parts of town.

At the end of the street, I turned into Grantchester Road. This, by no surprise, eventually takes you to the village of Grantchester, famous for the poet Rupert Brooke and less impressively, Jeffrey Archer. Rupert Brooke had a pub named after him in the village and is also associated with the tea orchard which is a big tourist draw. Archer, by contrast, is conspicuous in his absence in any tourist narrative the village uses to attract visitors. I recalled him coming to my secondary school and giving a talk where he extolled the virtue of hard work and competition. The reception he got from the assembled was polite but lukewarm. Any visitors are much more likely to associate the village with Brooke or Robson Green from the ITV drama series ‘Grantchester’ than Archer. Grantchester, the television program, is set in a fictionalised version of the village during the 1950s and partially at least filmed locally. The programme is a formula ITV drama and not of huge interest, other than to spot the difference between real and non-real local references and locations. The village was at least two map squares away from where I was at this point, possibly off the map. It would almost certainly be full of lockdown walkers and joggers, so I was glad I had not been randomly catapulted there today.

I passed the Rugby Stadium, home of the Cambridge Rugby Union Football Club and the University Rugby League club. This was a place I couldn’t ever recall seeing before, although I have cycled this route at least once. That was in the dark after a couple of pints at the Blue Ball in Grantchester, so maybe I didn’t notice it. It is mostly field after all.  The ground is called Volac Park due to a sponsoring deal with Volac, a company based in Royston, Herts and who are ‘world leaders in dairy nutrition’ according to their website. Previously the club was named after Wests Renault Garage a formerly well-established local business across town on Newmarket Road, since gone to make way for the ‘Anglia House’ student flats development.

 

 

On the other side of the road were a couple of University College Sports Grounds. The one belonging to Pembroke College had an impressive brown flat roofed modernist building, presumably the changing rooms and clubhouse. The land being private it was not accessible and I could only view from a distance.

I took a left turned off Grantchester road into ‘The Baulk’ permissive byway, just in time to avoid the point where the narrow, unmarked and in places windy road reached the national speed limit. The Baulk, by contrast, had a far more agreeable 5mph limit, presumably for tractors and people using it to get to the ‘Cocks and Hens’ tennis club for which there was also a sign here. The name seemed fitting for a location in a terrible 1970s ‘sex comedy, starring Robin Askwith rather than the University imbued edgelands of the 21st century city. After I looked at the map, it made more sense. Nearby, at least in 1980, were some Poultry Houses located behind the rugby club. The Baulk, meanwhile, is a historic footpath linking Grantchester and Barton, and also according to the sign, Coton and Maddingley. A path I had previously unaware of until today.

The sign for the Baulk featured the logo for something called’ QTSQ Quarter to Six Quadrant’, which sounded like the name of a mysterious University drinking club. On return google confirmed this referred to the area of Cambridge bordered by a straight line from Maddingley Road South to Grantchester and another from the same point running East to Coton, thus resembling the hands on a clock at a quarter to six. South Cambridgeshire District Council has designated this area a ‘Major Green Infrastructure Target Area’.The name QTSQ has also been adopted by a local association who have their own vision for the area and want to preserve it. They and have managed to get South Cambridgeshire District council to consider this vision as a material planning consideration. Their other activities include an oil club (the domestic fuel type), as well as promoting walks and local pubs in the area. This corner of the Cambridge edge is one hitherto largely untouched by major development unlike most other parts. If any local area is likely to be spared to sort of development seen elsewhere, it’s here. It will be interesting to see how things pan out over the next few years in this area – or ‘Quadrant’.

The path took a 45 degree turn to follow the edge of the ‘Cocks and Hens’ Tennis club, at a  point marked by a second world war pillbox. Not something I had expected to find, but I suppose this was a sort of edgeland, albeit one without the usual connotations of abandoned industry and dilapidation. This was more the edgeland of Cambridge University.

The track within the private grounds of the tennis club was dry and would have been easily walkable. The public track parallel to it, which ran alongside a brook, made me rebuke myself for coming out in footwear only really suitable for urban walking. I’d assumed I wouldn’t encounter the sort of muddy paths I’d inadvertently found myself on the day before across the saturated Stourbridge Common, but would be walking in an area where it was easy to stay on the dry land of asphalt and concrete. I was wrong! The path in front of me was something of a quagmire, but I managed to negotiate it in my unsuitable slip-on DM type boots by sticking to the relatively grassy bit near the brook, managing not to slip and fall in.

Safely on the other side, opposite the beer barrels stacked at the back of the Rugby Stadium, I noticed a gate led to a model railway. This was on the 1980 map, but somewhere I had never known existed and I had wondered if it would have disappeared. This is the home of the Cambridge Model Engineering Society who open the railway for public visits once a month (usually). Through the gate I could see what looked like a level crossing and a few other bits of railway paraphernalia but had I not known it was there, I could easily have missed it due to the prolific number of trees in the site. Further up another gate bore a notice confirming Covid-19 had curtailed public visits, in front of a muddy path that led somewhere but without the notice, again, there was no obvious sign of a model railway, with the place easily resembling a farm with chicken sheds as shown on the 1980 map.

As I approached the end of the section of path, with a small but impressive allotment site on one side and Fulbrooke Road on the other, I realised I hadn’t seen a single person along the Baulk. This place virgin territory for me, which in a city you have lived all your life Is always produces a mixture of mild euphoria and dreamlike unreality, particularly in places that are devoid of other people and out of the way of things. I felt this most keenly at the confluence of the path with Fulbrooke Road, The Allotments and the entrance to Kings College and Selwyn College Sports Ground (private property). Everything seemed to pause momentarily.

This was not just a metaphorical pause, though. I stopped to consult the map and saw two points of interest, things I’d never previously heard of or seen. ‘Stone Bridge’ was shown on the other side of the playing field where what looked like a continuation of the path met Barton Road. Before that, to the left of this path was what appeared to be a large lake, but which was not named or marked otherwise. This was located on land between houses on Fulbrooke Road and Barton Road. I considered going into the sports ground but could see no apparent pathway following the brook as shown on the map. Besides, the notice clearly stated the land was private, so regardless of the gate being wide open, I decided going in was a bad idea, path or no path. I was attempting to stick to the rules and didn’t want any unwanted attention from neighbours or the police.

Instead, I diverted down Fulbrooke Road, where also marking the confluence of paths was an impressive stinkpipe. This contributed to the sort of unchanged and just off the edge of town but not quite village atmosphere of the deserted street, which was very agreeable.

Back on Barton Road I headed towards the location of the Stone Bridge, on the 1980 map. One of the unnecessarily large houses that line the road, and at this point back onto the lake, had a large arched stained-glass window, above which a stone was engraved with ‘2000AD’. Maybe the part of the building above the garage was devoted to some sort of dystopian comic book judgement based religion, that made offerings to whatever dwelt in the lake to appease the deity. 

It soon became apparent there was no access to the lake from any point on Barton Road either and I gave up hope of seeing it. On return, from what I could gather, it is on private land and indeed not accessible to the public. It is known as Bolton’s Pit after George Bolton, who used to quarry bricks there in the 19^th century the quarry later becoming the lake. I did manage to view it via a video on an estate agent’s website, as part of the sales pitch for ‘The Lake House’, a new house on Barton Road with the lake at the end, or possibly in, its back garden. Apologies for the ‘estate agency-ness of the video which I have included purely for illustrative and educational purposes.

https://youtu.be/reJ3bHMZeQ4

Stone Bridge was marked on the map at the point of the sign marking the city limit. It occurred to me that what I thought was a path on the map following the brook through the sports field was in fact the line of the city boundary. I could see just beyond the sign a layby which normally accommodates resting truckers and a burger van, but it was devoid of either. I crossed the road to where a brook emerged. I couldn’t work out if this was the same brook I had been walking along and if this had crossed under the road, or if this was different one. The map was vague on this and looking at the current OS map didn’t help either. There was no sign of a stone bridge either side of the road. But the emerging brook was wider, fuller and flowing much more rapidly here as it turned through a pronounced meander. From the map, I identified this as part of the Bin Brook, a watercourse I had heard of and seen on maps but which had otherwise remained off my radar previously.

A short distance along the brook I reached ‘Gough Way Culvert’ which took the brook underground beneath the Gough Way Estate. Another channel went off at right angles and later investigation revealed this as a relief channel for the Bin Brook. I followed the course of the brook via a passage into Gough Way Estate, which was another part of Cambridge I had no memory of ever visiting  or even being aware of. Most of the houses were built between the mid-1960s and mid-1970s. Houses on the estate suffered flooding in 1978 and again in 2001 and despite the culvert and relief channel there are concerns that the area is still at risk from this happening again. Today, this seemed more than possible.

I brief and uneventful walk among the typical suburban 60s/70s middle class houses soon led to another passage following the direction of the brook. A notice said the footpath was private and would close at 4.30. I can’t recall if there was a gate. Maybe this closure just happened on trust. I decided to take the path since 4.30 was two hours away and despite the sign it didn’t really look private.

I soon emerged at a small recreation ground surrounded by houses on three sides. On the left side the Bin Brook had re-emerged and the footpath followed its course. A handful of young people were on the rec and I soon passed a trio of elderly(ish) women with small dogs, who said hello and didn’t appear to regard me as suspicious. That, in my mind, validated my right to walk the path. The path and brook separated the estate on one side and Corpus Christi College Sports Ground on the other, the latter hidden behind trees but clear on the 1980 map.

I noticed the path featured lights in the floor which are sometimes found on cycle paths. The path seemed a bit narrow to accommodate cycling, but a sign advising people to slow down in advance of a sharp blind bend suggested the route was used to cycle into town. As I took the bend, I saw no cyclists. My attention was momentarily diverted into the field which suddenly appeared on the estate side of the path as the houses ran out. It looked at first glance like a normal agricultural field but there were two people standing in the middle having a chat among whatever was growing. They didn’t strike me as farmers and I wondered if the field was connected with the West Cambridge site nearby which is an amalgam of University linked science based institutions. Was the field was used for conventional agriculture or some sort of experimentation? Given the strangeness of the last year and the weird times we are living in, the second option felt like something that now would probably be regarded as more normal and run of the mill than perhaps it ought to be . Of course, they could have quietly been plotting to sell the land for housing, although being in the Quarter to Six Quadrant this would have been a bit optimistic on their part.

I only encountered one other person along the remaining section of the path. A jogger, who showed no sign of intending to deviate from a straight trajectory in the middle of the narrow path, presented an awkward social distancing challenge. I had to force myself into a hedge in order to try and move myself two metres away. While mildly irritating, the narrow path was never going to allow much leeway when meeting anybody coming the other way. I reflected that while not an ideal place to go for a run, anybody living 'local' who did not have access to the vast green spaces of the various University sports fields in the vicinity, had little choice but to make do with the limited space available in between them.

I emerged into Cranmere Road which I realised was out of the map square. But there had been no other route given that much of the land this side of Barton Road in square D4 was inaccessible University or College land. This road led to Grange Road where I headed back into D4. Grange Road was at the Eastern edge of the map square. Along it I passed a mixture of college and University buildings, mostly residential. Nothing immediately struck me and the lack of sideroads to explore and the beginning of aching legs indicated it was time to depart square D4. I decided to turn back and exit the grid square to the North where just beyond was the Cambridge University Rugby Union Club. I briefly stood outside to look at and pay homage to the Red Lion statue, which was unceremoniously half hidden behind a skip. After bidding farewell to the former Town Centre icon I walked home.

 

From the periphery of The Kite and into 'The Grafton Quarter'.

The Kite

The Kite is an area on the edge of central Cambridge. It's shape, as defined by the four stretches of road that contain it, is easily visible on any contemporary map of the City. Since about 1983 the area has been dominated by 'The Grafton' shopping centre. Plans for a shopping centre in Cambridge were first muted in the 50s with the Kite a favoured location. In the end the Lion Yard was built first, arriving in the town centre in the early 1970s. Despite this, plans to develop the Kite were still being pushed (and fought against) for the rest of the decade and into the early 80s. The Kite's main thoroughfares of Fitzroy Street and Burleigh Street had long provided a decent range of shops, including the Cambridge Co-op's flagship department store, Laurie and McConnell (another department store) and an array of smaller independent outlets. But the authorities wanted the Kite to become a major retail destination to complement (rival?) the main town centre and Lion Yard just ten minutes walk away.

The University and Colleges were, unsurprisingly, a significant influence on the decision to demolish the streets once part of an area once known as 'Barnwell', in order to make way for The Grafton Centre. Barnwell in Victorian times was poor and had a notorious reputation, a place very much 'town' rather than 'gown'.  It contained a number of brothels which were the main loci of the limited visits 'gown' made to the area. These visits was illicit and unapproved. The area remained one where working class 'town' people lived and worked for years after until they were displaced by 'The Grafton Centre', an occurrence long after the name 'Barnwell' had  migrated East to the areas adjacent to Cambridge Airport and The Abbey Stadium.

The apparent purposeful dilapidation of the houses, until they and the people who lived in them could be removed, was part of a trend that has continued at pace in Cambridge. 'Ordinary' 'town' people were being pushed further to the less pleasant edges of the city or out to the villages and satellite towns. But were still welcome, even expected, to travel back for work, leisure and shopping at great inconvenience and expense. Upon it's arrival the Grafton Centre became a major locus for both work and shopping, and to a lesser extent, leisure (shopping is not leisure in my book).

There was vigorous opposition to the development. I can recall as a child seeing 'Save The Kite' written on walls and protests on local news programmes. I have memories of a World In Action documentary being  shown on ITV about the campaign, but since no record of this seems to exist on line and nobody I have spoken to remembers it, this may be a false memory.

By the time the Grafton Centre opened in about 1983 I had probably not even started secondary school. My recollections of the Kite before it arrived are very vague and mostly limited to the main Fitzroy/Burleigh Street axis and the Co-op Club located on James Street, all streets that survived. I've little memory of anything definite that stood before on the footprint of the Grafton Centre. My Dad often took me to the Co-op club on evenings when my Mum worked. He parked up in the streets nearby, some of which later have gave way to the development. The dilapidated looking houses featured bright graffiti and murals. The only one I clearly remember depicted a giant green face with long hair.  At the time I associated it with The Incredible Hulk which would have been on TV around that time, but it was more likely connected with those occupying the buildings in protest against the impending demolition. I never saw the Little Kettle Cafe or the original Grapvine Bookshop,  the loci of opposition at the time and located on the section of Fitzroy Street the Grafton Centre was eventually built over.

I have clearer memories of the earliest incarnation of the Grafton Centre. The 'glass' lifts that led up to the car park could have been from a bad science fiction TV show from a few years earlier. Below these was a fountain into which people were  encouraged to throw coins. What they were spent on I never found out. Towards the back end was a small supermarket called Prestos from which the stench of fish constantly wafted into the surrounding area. Security men delighted in finding reasons to throw their weight around, often by tannoy from room hidden away somewhere.  Taking a bike through, loitering or, later, smoking, would result in an authoritarian announcement of rebuke.

The Grafton Centre was my first experience of a self-contained shopping area with it's own rules and private security guards instead of proper police. A totally separate environment from that outside, and one that felt a bit more sinister. By contrast, Lion Yard, although covered, felt more like a continuation of what was around it and more human. More like a poor quality arcade rather than the sort of American style self contained 'mall' which the Grafton Centre aspired to be. The Lion Yard also had the advantage of containing the Central Library, the  Red Lion Statue and the Golden Egg cafe. The Grafton has never contained anything of such significance or interest, although the Lion Yard in recent years has veered more in the direction of the Grafton Centre,with the removal of the Red Lion, addition of the Grand Arcade (a posh extension) and a series of  'no' signs at its entrances which are now closed at night.

Recently the Grafon Centre has been subject to the latest in a series of revamps. I deduced from the advertising stories that the 'centre' suffix that had officially been dropped from the name a few years back was not being reinstated, reflecting perhaps the short attention span/information overload environment that currently engulfs everything. The current revamp is part of the local plan for Cambridge and an 'SPD' document was published on the council's website a couple of years ago covering the Grafton, Fitzroy and Burleigh Streets as well as some peripheral areas. This zone has been identified as an 'area of major change'.  I decided to make a rare visit to the Grafton to see what was going on.

Periphery of the Kite

Before entering The Grafton, I felt it necessary to carry out a preparatory walk around the border of The Kite, along the four roads that contain the area. An orbit of the Grafton would afford the chance to both fortify me with real fresh(ish) air before my immersion into it's closed environment and also to re-explore it's surroundings and any remnants of what had existed before.

I began at New Square, next to the pedestrian crossing which is at the centre of the transition zone between the Town Centre and the Kite and where the seemingly endless stream of shoppers go back and forth between the two. Nearby the post below is a marker of this zone.

I headed along Short Street, as it is known beyond the signpost. Prior to that it's called Emmanuel Road. I'm not quite sure why the need for the dual road name exists. There is another example of this around the corner where the outline of the Kite continues along Maids Causeway which at some point before James Street and the ex-Zebra Pub becomes Newmarket Road.

One of the large Georgian houses that make up the stretch of Maids Causeway features a peculiar looking gate. The white painted symbols at the centre brought to mind the creature from the children television programme 'Vision On', but rather than being a 1970s creation by Wilf Lunn or Tony Hart, the gate was 21st century and bar coded. The bar code provided a link to information about the design. It represents a famous (at least in the field of quantum mechanics) experiment by Greenberger, Horne and Zellinger, hence the name GHZ-gate. The experiment apparently demonstrated 'non-locality'. This involves the existence of 'spooky' correlations in the quantum measurements of things at different locations caused by 'collaborations' between particles vast distances from each other. Or something.

The phrase 'non-locality' brought to mind The Grafton Centre and similar shopping 'malls'. Maybe spooky collaborations are taking place between the particles of all shopping centres across the UK (and probably the world). This might explain the high degree of homogeneity and blandness that they all seem to share. Their quality of anywhereness and disconnect from the places they are imposed on seem to fit the term 'non-locality' quite well.

At the corner of Fair Street I noticed what appeared to be date stamps on the wall. I'm not sure of any specific significance of 1878  in the history of the Kite. But by this time most of the development of streets and houses that replaced 'The Garden Of Eden', a market garden which covered a large part of the Kite, would have been complete. The gap between the two dates on the wall appeared symbolic of a period  sandwiched between two eras of significant change. The Grafton and surrounding pedestrianisation of Burleigh and Fitzroy Streets was largely complete by 1984. Meanwhile, an old fashioned black Victorian lamppost stands across the road from this wall, a surviving artifact from the interregnum between deveopments.

I stopped next outside the 'remains' of the Zebra pub. The building still stands unchanged but with an air of early stage deriliction. The two zebra heads on the front of the pub have been having the same conversation since the pub closed. It's the same resigned conversation that recurs among the populace of Cambridge each time a new development is proposed or gets the go ahead from the Council.

I couldn't work out if the building was currently being used as 'student accomodation'. Not so long ago an estate agents sign appeared to be advertising it as such but this had since disappeared. There was no sign of anyone inside or any significant changes or 'improvments' to the building since the pub had closed.  A window pane had been broken exposing a flappy Venetian blind. Ivy and other plant life associated with liminal spaces had taken root in several areas giving the air of abandonment. But it's not impossible students or other residents are living inside, given the dire shortage of reasonably priced living space in Cambridge and the enthusiasm of some landlords and estate agents to take full advantage of the situation.

Prior to it's closure the Zebra had become a sort of overspill/rival for the King Street Run pub a few hundred yards away, frequented by punks and other 'alternative' types and occasionally hosting live music. I lived out of town and never really visited the pub during this period. I'm not sure what Green King's excuse for closing it was.

Across the street, the Burleigh Arms is still open. It was a significant establishment on the local 'alternative'  music circuit in the 1980s when it hosted live bands in a sweaty side room. I was a frequent visitor. But around 1989 the music was stopped and the walls ceased sweating after complaints from neighbours and unsuccessful experiments to compromise using a sound limiting device. I haven't visited the pub in its current incarnation and I rarely hear it mentioned by anyone I know. It's somewhere that slipped of my radar 20 years ago, noticed only in ghost form from the corner of the eye when passing. Maybe a visit is in order. But not today.

I reached Christ Church and the street running up it's side bearing it's name. The Church turrets are reminiscent of those on the neo-byzantine Cathedral of Westminster (but much smaller) and unusual in Cambridge. I took a diversion down Christ Church Street along the side of the building. Something was going on inside which put me off wandering into the small grounds. Instead I lurked a while behind a side building which stood next to an electricity substation and with it's back wall facing the Grafton Centre, as if in a stand off. The plant life growing up the building furthest from the substation had withered on one side and turned brown, exposing two flint layers resembling geological substrata. It was as if the building bore the marks of the struggle to 'save the kite' and was now being sustained by the electricity from it's neighbour. It had survived but whatever used to stand in front of it had disappeared nearly 40 years ago.

The vista now opposite the church outbuilding was a microcosm of 1980s bland architecture, with the added bonus of a rebuking 'no' notice attached to an intermediate wall. I only noticed the large print 'NO IDLING' command initially and decided, just to be awkward, that I would loiter around a bit. But then I realised it referred to turning off car engines.  A reasonable demand I suppose even if stated in an authoritarian and patronising manner. When it comes awareness raising of wider environmental issues, a large section of the population either switch off from or get irate at what they perceive as the pronouncements of patronising 'do-gooders'. Consequently they become determined to do the exact opposite. So I wondered about the effectiveness of this notice

The building behind the wall is one side of the Grafton Centre, containing residential flats as well as 'tradesmens entrances' to the shops. Their are flats hidden along both sides of the Grafton and it's easy to forget they are there. I've never met anybody who lives in one or knows anybody who lives in one, and as such they seem peripheral and remote.  I wondered if the view from the other side of the flats is actually into the shopping centre or if there are just no windows at the rear. I didn't ever recall seeing any from inside the shopping centre.

I walked along the 'street' alongside the flats and trades entrances. All was 1980s except a short stretch of wall the opposite side from the Grafton. Somehow I'd never noticed it before. As I loitered I saw established vegetation growing from the cracks and crevices in top of the wall and that the brickwork was clearly Victorian. A plaque in the wall confirmed this: 'This wall and the ground on which it stands belongs wholly to the Cambridge refuge, July 1941. This stone was replaced 1881'. The plaque apparently refers to a refuge established for prostitutes (or probably in many cases women falsely convicted of prostitution by the University court) where they stayed for rehabilitation prior to being given jobs in domestic service.

After the second world war, the building was used again as a refuge for displaced families from overseas, after which it fell empty and had a last phase of use of by local children for playing and making dens before being finally demolished.  I gleaned this information from the excellent Capturing Cambridge website after my walk but have found little else about the site anywhere else.

The section of wall had survived and stands like the church outbuilding in defiance of what sits opposite. Viewed from the angle below it resembles a barrier between new and old, but behind it sits Stanton House, a complex of  old peoples flats far more recent than the wall, although I think (only just) pre-Grafton Centre. I vaguely recall visiting my Great Grandad when he lived there but so vaguely that I can't remember the immediate surroundings. But the wall remains, an opposing projection from another time in an angry face off. The bollards appeared to have been put there to hold it back, lest it contaminate the sterility opposite.

Beyond the end of the wall is Napier Street, which runs from a rear exit of the Grafton Centre back down towards the other side of Christ Church. The building that houses the former Ancient Druids Pub now houses a Chinese restaurant. The second 'lost pub' in the space of a 10 minute walk, the 1980s single story not-flat roofed-flat roof pub-style building soon replaced an earlier Ancient Druids on Fitzroy Street that was lost to the Grafton Centre development in 1982. In my younger (underage) drinking days we sometimes used the second incarnation of the Ancient Druids. It used to have an on-site brewery so served some of its own beer and thus may have been 20 years ahead of its time, but I can't remember if the beer was any good. Other than that, it largely resembled a modern estate pub with a confusing split level floor. I quite liked it but perhaps it was the unfortunate rear of the Grafton location and Cambridge not being ready to embrace and nurture the micro-brewery beer it brewed (possibly it wasn't any good) that were the main factors it's demise.

Other than Stanton House and Christ Church, the main feature on Napier Street is Cobble Yard. I say main feature, it's largely a forgotten corner of Cambridge with a small number of businesses, most notably a post office along with a changing cast of other outlets, currently a hairdressers, printers, financial advice company, osteopath and an 'ethical' residential lettings company.

In the mid 2000's there was a slight return to the sordid Barnwell of old on the site when the Talk of The Town lap dancing establishment took over the Cellar Bar, a subterranean venue below the yard. It lasted for quite a while considering the controversy it seemed to generate, including the leaving of an advertising trailer in a layby on Barnwell Road. (an act connecting both 'Barnwells', intentional or not). The layby was not far from a school, causing some outrage. But this sort of debauchery couldn't last in Cambridge, despite being sited in an area that 100 years before was reputed for sordid and ribald behaviour. Modern progressive Cambridge just wouldn't stand for it and the club closed its doors in 2011.

The premises had previously been a series of nightclubs/music venues but each was short lived, partly due to the proximity of houses and associated noise problems but also due to the weird location. I don't think many people knew it was there. The passage leading to the entrance is now gated over and apparently, according to a discrete plaque on the wall, the premises is now run by something called Citystay Corporate Accommodation. Serviced accommodation is as favoured as student accommodation, if not more so, by developers and property owners in Cambridge these days, so while this use of the premises appeared to lack imagination it was no surprise.

I think it was in one of the offices (former houses) back on Newmarket Road that for a period was  an outstation of Anglia Television News. Occasionally their reporters could be seen standing outside talking into the microphone as they presented an item for one of their programmes.  Just across the road was the HQ of the Cambridge Evening News. Thus the area was a hub of local news media temporarily. But at some point Anglia News retreated back to its Norwich HQ and the Cambridge Evening News relocated to a business park in Milton, just outside the City. Not long after the 'Evening' bit of its name was dropped, and while this had become increasingly ludicrous given that the paper was available from at least midday, it heralded the start of it's decline  towards reliance on advertising click-bait rather than quality local journalism.

The next notable feature is the building housing the Cambridge Buddhist Centre. I nearly walked past, it's an easy building to miss, but was glad to see it was still there and still untouched by any recent development. I knew it had once been 'The Festival Theatre' long before my time, but realised I knew next to nothing about it. A quick Internet check revealed it had originally been built as 'The Barnwell Theatre'. Later local businessman, Robert Sayle, purchased the building and turned it into an evangelical mission.

Robert Sayle had established a successful drapery business on St Andrews Street, which grew into a department store and was later acquired by The John Lewis Partnership. The store was known as Robert Sayle (or Sayle's for short) for years after. It managed to maintain the atmosphere of  'Are You Being Served' until the Robert Sayle name was dropped upon the store's  temporarily relocation to Burleigh Street in the former Co-op department store building. The temporary move was to facilitate the building of the Grand Arcade on the St Andrews Street Site, where the store would eventually return to a permanent home incorporated into the new shopping centre. The Robert Sayle name was lost forever along with the old school department store atmosphere and the renovated store was indistinguishable from any other John Lewis. Maybe this was a consequence of a 'spooky' collaboration between the Grafton Centre and the new Grand Arcade to ensure 'non-locality' was established. Anyway, the Festival Theatre had been dormant since 1946 after a brief revival during the war and used as a storage space for the Arts Theatre, until opening as the Buddhist Centre in 1999, long after the development around the Grafton centre just behind it.

Just beyond a subsidiary road (more of a layby) called Sun Street runs along some 1980s/90s officey looking buildings known collectively as Duke Court. I think Sun Street was in the past more significant but  it's difficult to find much about it with a cursory google search since the top hits are all for serviced apartments which exist hidden somewhere within Duke Court. The most prominent occupiers are an estate agent and something called Elite Education,which according to it's website provides 'elite' education to people from/in Bangladesh by partnering with various Universities. The location in Cambridge presumably adds prestige and is probably the main reason it is based here, like so many other international educational establishments. Dukes Court is a site that is easily ignored or unseen by the casual passer by. It replaced a row of buildings that included or were adjacent to the Carioca Club, a place mentioned in a previous post. and which also always seemed somewhere off the beaten track despite being in town. Back in the Barnwell days, it seems there was a pub along this stretch called 'The Gallant Tar' but web references to this are limited to one unmaintained 'potentially unsafe' website as far as I can tell and possibly unreliable.

At the end of Dukes Court is a gap where something has been demolished in recent months. I can't recall what stood there before at all, which is a bit weird but I suppose not that surprising given the out of the way and unassuming nature of this stretch. At the back of the buddleia festooned site is a white light-industrial building which looks of John Pertwee era Dr Who vintage and very much of the old Kite. The legend 'Deja Vu' brightly painted on it's facade, partly obscured by vegetation, seems fitting. Although I had no real recollection of what stood on the cleared site previously, there was something familiar about the space. I then considered that the phrase 'Deja Vu' could well have referred to the new development behind the white building, looming up and looking very similar to most other recent developments.

Beyond this a few metres is the corner of Newmarket at East Road, dominated by the Elizabeth Way roundabout. The roundabout is very much of the early 70s with its underpasses and concrete that replaced the tip of the Kite and rendered part of what had been Barnwell beyond recognition.  I recall hearing talk in the past of  modernising the roundabout, particularly the underpasses, which would be a shame. It is a unique site in Cambridge, a city lacking it's fair share new town brutalist concrete. On this corner of the roundabout is a large brown 1980s building called Compass House, formerly offices and now part of Anglia Ruskin University. Unlike the roundabout and it's underpasses, this building is a structure devoid of notability or interest, which may well have been the intention.

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Just beyond the building into East Road the back end of The Grafton Centre becomes visible. The area extending immediately out from it to where I stood is a mess of road, car park and bus lanes with a scattering of buildings. I turned into this zone and soon found myself within a small area of disused light industrial buildings, one of which was recently reported as being used for a crack den. This led me into Severn Place, a road I had previously been unaware of. Along one side were a couple of boarded up and fenced off 1930s  houses, looking like relics of a pre-Grafton centre Kite. I'd evidently caught them in limbo, pre-demolition. I didn't know how long they had been in that state. I wondered how I'd managed to remain oblivious of the existence of Severn Place.

An A4 laminated notice, faded to and located in obscurity, was attached to the building across road. It contained information of how the development for the street had been intended to pan out. The notice dated from 2014 meaning work had been either paused for some time or abandoned completely by the original developer.  Two new apartment blocks had been built prior to this break in activity. Evidently both are at least partly used for yet more serviced accommodation. The plan had originally been to join Severn Place up with Newmarket Road and form a link with East Road. Only the white 'deja vu' building is physically preventing this so it's surely it's only a matter of time until this comes to pass.

Meanwhile, the road is in a state of paused transition, with luxury flats on one side and a defunct, brown and vegetation infused light industrial premises on the other. A Pre and Post Grafton Centre face off in a place used as an unofficial overspill car park and one where men in grey hooded tops get out of battered Vauxhall Astras, loiter about on their phones and smoke fags.

I crossed back over the area of road heading towards the main Grafton car park back onto East Road where I encountered The Cambridge Working Men's Club. This is housed in a building resembling a small offshoot of the Grafton Centre with a sort of futuristic mock-Tudor front entrance. All other aspects of the building give little away about what it is. I noted that guests are welcome to use the club. Possibly a sign of the times, social clubs like pubs are suffering declining attendance. But it was good to see traditional social club activities like bingo, pool, snooker and live music are all on offer. There are still a few places like this in Cambridge but they have reduced in number as the population that uses them has been thinned out. It's unlikely that the temporary residents of serviced accommodation are frequent visitors.

Just beyond the working men's club I passed the part of the Grafton Centre occupied by the Vue Cinema. The imposing turret-like structure gives the appearance of a sort of cardboard and glass fortress. This was added in the second phase of the Grafton's development as part of an extension that also featured numerous food outlets and more shops that included British Home Stores. The latter was seen as an additional 'flagship store' for the Grafton but about three years ago it disappeared when BHS when bust, just after the company and it's large pension fund deficit were sold to new owners for £1 by Philip Green.

I carried on, keeping to East Road. I soon came to a small row of two or three older buildings, original Kite vintage houses now used as businesses: a barbers and a tattoo shop. At the end of this row is the building that until recently housed 'The Snug', a sort of cocktail bar. A noticed proclaimed 'watch this space', bore the legend 'Not Snug' and prophetically indicated the next incarnation of the building would be revealed on 11.10.19. And like most prophetic announcements nothing has happened and the site remains inactive.

The building is most notable in recent times for being 'The Boat Race' which, in it's later years, was a much revered music venue. It  hosted up and coming bands that became well known, many more who didn't and a Sunday Blues Jam with free roast potatoes on the bar. The earlier incarnation of the Boat Race occasionally hosted local blues bands but was more of a pub. The small front bar was frequented by bikers and a pool table. The bigger back bar catered to  a younger cider and blackcurrant drinking crowd of heavy metal and goth types. I recall that interactions between the two halves of the pub while not altogether unknown, were fairly limited.

Previous to being called the Boat Race the pub was known as the Falcon. Apparently my Great Nana  lived nearby and used to visit the 'bottle and jug' to buy stout and yak to her friends. Even earlier, the pub went  by the name Waggon and Horses. On first opening in 1827 the area was pretty much rural with the Garden of Eden still in existence where  much of the now demolished Kite had not yet built. What the next incarnation of the building will be remains to be seen.

I passed the end of Burleigh Street and the corner where Blockbuster Video once stood, now a musical instrument shop. Just up from this on Burleigh Street is the entrance to WTs Snooker and Sporting club which is housed above the shops fronting onto East Road and named after it's owner, the former snooker player Willie Thorne. The club is inconspicuous other than for a constant gathering of people standing at the entrance smoking. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Willie Thorne has never visited Cambridge, let alone the club.

Opposite this corner, the other side of East Road, is locally remembered for a far less inconspicuous gathering (or maybe series of gatherings). Here once stood the long demolished building that had housed Thakes Bike shop, where I once bought a number plate for my Raleigh Burner during the first wave of BMX enthusiasm in the early 1980s. After the shop closed down the building was squatted and on at least one occasion hosted a party which resulted in police confrontation. This was circa 1985 and I was too young to be involved, probably only having recently having disposed of the Raleigh Burner and still at school. But I was there to witness a large crowd of young people lining each side of  East Road outside the 'venue' shouting at the police and anyone else who would listen. I was in the back of my uncle's car having spent a family evening in the smoky confines of the Cambridge United Supporters Club and we were on route to Chan's Super Kitchen for a takeaway. We had no idea what was going on at the time but emerged from the maelstrom with our house special curry untouched. The event turned out to be a significant one. It highlighted the lack of decent venues for young people and resulted in the Council building the Cambridge Junction music and arts venue.

As well as Chan's Super Kitchen, which is long gone, Kentucky Fried Chicken was an often frequented establishment at such family gatherings. The Cambridge branch is still located where the thick of the action was taking place that night all those years before. These days 'KFC' as it's now known is not a place I ever think about visiting. But when I was  about 11 years old it ranked as one of the few spots I recommended when the Cambridge Evening News came to my school and selected pieces we had written about Cambridge in an English class. Mine was inexplicably among those chosen for publication.  Most of the other pieces were nauseatingly reverential about the Backs of the Colleges, churches and museums. I enthused about Andy's Records, Cambridge's abundance of fine Indian Restaurants and Kentucky Fried Chicken. It was good to see the 'News, then a quality publication, was prepared to feature some 'low culture' other than football. But perhaps not coincidentally, this was the only time anything I've written was ever published for public consumption in a widely read organ (or at all).

Now the temptation to visit either the KFC or the Duke of Cambridge pub next door was not great. The pub is another establishment I never really notice these days and haven't frequented for a long time. But contemporarily with the Boat Race I went there a lot.  A few of us started going in and we seemed to be the only customers. The old couple that ran it put up with us, presumably for this reason. Whispers of 'it's that lot from the Boat Race' from her to him were heard the first time we arrived. Later someone else took over and I carried on using it for a pie and pint at lunchtimes while at Anglia Higher Education College. Much later it had a brief spell as something called 'The Noble Art', a terrible concept bar with a boxing theme, metal furniture and cocktails. I never went in. I think after this the name changed to The Bakers Yard. The atmosphere had been lost for me and I had also developed an aversion to Greene King beer by this time so used it very infrequently. A few years ago it was re-branded The Duke Of Cambridge following a visit by Prince William to the City. Years before, his uncle, Prince Edward, was apparently barred from the pub after being involved in an incident of some kind on the premises when he was a student at the University.

I carried on past the next stretch of buildings, mainly student accommodation for the Anglia Ruskin University opposite peppered with a few shops and the Tram Depot pub set back behind in a yard, another venue that featured regularly in my youth. Then past the last block of student flats, called 'Centre Point' and which feature a large 'H' above the name. The locked gate and security notices would not be out of place in Wentworth Prison I suppose. Mixed with images of locked in students watching repeats of Bea Smith and Co in the fictional 'Cell Block H' beamed from battered televisions, I could feel the ghosts of Chan's Super Kitchen and old school chippy, both  used to be somewhere around here but their exact locations I couldn't recall.

Up from 'Cell Block H' was, almost appropriately, the County Court building. Underneath the heraldic symbolism of the Lion and Unicorn Crest in the doorway, a homeless person was sleeping under a silver reflective blanket. The authoritarian self importance I felt the crest projected was especially unpleasant in this juxtaposition and was particularly concentrated in the ghostly silver/white face of the Lion. This appeared as a grinning fizzhog of smug superior I'm-alright-jackness and directed a harsh and deranged judgement from within the centre of the mane. It was a depressing sight, but not one unexpected in Cambridge which it is said is the UK's most unequal City. Over the road the Zion Baptist Church hosts Jimmy's night shelter for the homeless and stands as another reminder of this.

The County Court building is sited on the former location of the Drill Hall. This was a place used by soldiers as a social meeting place during both world wars. Later was the location of the 'Post Office Club', a social club for posties. Another place of snooker, darts, bingo and 'dos's in the dance hall. The club still exists but has been downsized, amalgamated and forced to the periphery. It's now located on Barnwell Road next to the Airport as one faction of the Joint Ex Services and Royal Mail Club.

I carried on past Wellington House, it's anonymous four storey flat brown glass facade obscuring the serviced offices housing anonymous businesses. Then past the hipster bike and art themed Espresso Library cafe, housed on the ground floor of a recent development consisting of luxury flats, many of which are, unsurprisingly, used as serviced apartments. This was becoming a theme. They are peppered along the Kite's periphery like vultures circling.

The gated entrance to the development looked like it had been assembled from random leftover beams of varying sizes and a spare fire door. But at the same time was imposing and authoritarian. The gate looked like something that could be an entrance to a town centre Zardoz, which I suppose being a gated development (probably less of a community) it sort of is.

On the wall was what looked like a charred hand print, perhaps all that was left of a foolish outsider who had tried to gain access and was dealt with by whatever hi-tech security device protects the building. I imagined a giant concrete head rising from behind the gate, red laser beams coming out of it's eyes to deal with intruders. The reality would probably be more subtle, but no less sinister.

Around the corner onto Parkside is the Cambridge fire station. The luxury flats are built above, around and behind it. Any other noisy public service would no doubt have been forced to move out to the periphery due to complaints by incoming residents, but I suppose having something potentially lifesaving underneath you is exceptionally considered worth the odd disturbance. The fire station has been spruced up to fit in with the development, while the Police station next door remains in it's older grey, semi-brutalist 1970s building, pending a decision to relocate it. The charred hand print evidence enough, I suppose, that the residents of Parkside Place have no worries about burglars and have no pressing requirement for local police. Instead, no doubt the Police station will make an excellent site to help remedy the shortage of serviced apartments in the vicinity.

While such ostentatious and apparently unchallenged investment opportunism in property was probably not practised in the Kite to such ruthless extent in it's Victorian phase of development, the signs are there that those with money were trying to keep a tight grip on it. The bricked up window below demonstrates an early example of tax avoidance which, coincidentally, also future proofed the aperture from entrance by heavy goods vehicles.

Victorian/Georgian facades continue for the remainder of Park Street only broken by the entrance to Parkside Community College, Melbourn Place and Clarendon Street. Most of the buildings seem to house offices of Solicitors or similar enterprises these days but mostly resemble buildings at least once used as houses. Along the very final stretch and into Emmanuel Road, the brick of the buildings is particularly stained as to be almost black, most likely because of 20th century bus pollution rather than having to do with being a century old. There is no view into the windows behind the dusty net curtains and things are nearly as obscure in shady doorways or down the dark side passages blocked by locked iron gates. These places are always apparently devoid of people and appear frozen in another time. In a sense they are, since they are on the edge of the conservation area which protects most of what occupies the space that somehow managed to avoid demolition in the 1980s and has since been preserved by the forces of gentrification.

Onto Emmanuel Road, No 1 is named, as shown on a relatively new looking plaque, 'Hamied House'.  This is Christ's College student student accommodation. There is also a  'Hamied Hall' a bit further up and Hamied Lodge somewhere else in the near vicinity. All named after the chemist Dr Yusuf Hamied, an alumni and patron of Christ's College

The Unitarian Church building next door has been 'the home of liberal religion since 1904'. It's notice board promotes the living wage and gives details for the samaritans. The building is humble but magnificent. Gigs are occasionally held in the church. About a year ago here I enjoyed seeing Justin Hopper doing a reading from The Old Weird Albion, with temperamental backing from a laptop and projector. I was also glad to get to see the inside of the building, which was dark brown wood panelled and resembled a more austere version of a Sam Smiths Pub, providing the same feeling of escaping into a dark brown refuge of still somewhere-slightly-elswhereness, except with an alter (doubling as a stage) instead of a bar. Robyn Hitchcock made one of his irregular returns to Cambridge a few weeks later to play the venue.

The other side of Victoria Street, the next stretch of  buildings were occupied variously by yet more serviced apartments, The King Slocombe School of Dance and the previously mentioned Hamied Hall. These facts are only advertised by discrete plaques, unnoticed by the casual passer by. I wondered who King Slocombe was. It turns out it was two people; Betty (King) and Edna (Slocombe), who founded the school in 1940. Located underneath the plaque are also two small plastic door bells, one black and one white as if they represented the yin and yan of Betty and Edna.

Only just beyond is a large white abandoned looking building, windows boarded up with Forestry Commission approved panels. In it's back yard, low level feral greenery had colonised much of the floor. Around the bottom of the house and the flat roofed outbuildings at the back  what looked from a distance like a hybrid or dock leaves and unruly spinach was growing around the base of the house. It was frothing out from inside interspersed with a few taller things that were starting to creep up the walls. I had a brief foray into the space, surprised at finding a mini- edgelands scene at this location. I can;y say I'd ever noticed the house before which made it feel like it had only recently been imposed there. Apparently it was recently a dental practise, which may have explained the still pristine whiteness of the building, albeit now peppered with light brown 'cavities'. No doubt the liminal stage the building is at will be short lived and something to be savoured before the almost certain arrival of yet more serviced accommodation.

Next door is a posh interior designers called Angel and Blume. I don't know about the interior as I've never been in but I thought the exterior of the building looked pretty good. It could easily be mistaken to be still operating as a pub, albeit a more 21 century craft ale emporium on a Hoxton street corner than it's final pub incarnation as a Lacons house in 1971. It was known as The Golden Rose and a large ostentatious replica of said flower is bolted to the gold panel above the door. Somehow I'd never noticed this before. In alchemy, the Golden Rose apparently symbolised perfection, completion of a project and invocation of cosmic energy and past masters. The building was certainly built as a pub and also one of  an age to have been built in the first period of Kite development. Buildings (particularly pubs) like this could only be produced by past masters. New buildings, pubs in particular (when rarely built) are usually sterile and temporary feeling. The Rose symbol (now noticed) seemed to be a reminder of what was possible. Past masters could, also I suppose, refer to passed piss artists whose ghosts are no doubt locked behind the purple ornate doors, ready to be invoked should the site ever be returned to it's original and correct use.

A few seconds later having crossed Elm Street, I joined the horde of shoppers heading towards the Grafton along the path that bifurcates New Square. Now a pleasant green space, pre-Grafton New Square was concreted over and used as a car park with a pedestrian footbridge going across.

I blended in with the crowd and pretended that my pilgrimage was the same as theirs, a journey towards retail 'therepy'. When feelings of boredom and frustration soon came over me it was obvious I had pretended too well. On reaching the Eden chapel the other side of New Square, I came to, and with relief remembered I was not here to shop. The Chapel is another institution shifted by the development. The original was swallowed into the Grafton Centre. The facade is still there but now barely recognisable in its most recent incarnation as Gail's Bakery. On incorporation it originally housed 'The Trolly Stop' which later became 'Footlights'. This was nothing to do with the University comedy revue but a Mexican restaurant-come-cocktail bar.

I walked along the opposite side of the pedestrianised road, underneath the Christmas banner indicating I was now entering the 'The Grafton Quarter'. The sanitising practise of re-branding areas of cities as 'quarters' is something that's I've only noticed in Cambridge fairly recently. Indeed, the Grafton Quarter was the only one I could think of when I saw the banner. I had no idea where or if the other three quarters existed.  It felt like the banner marked the latest attempt in the erosion of the spirit of place of the old Kite.

I passed the block of shops that houses Argos and Little Waitrose   The plaque attached to the corner of the building at Eden Street Backway indicates the block was built in 1957 by Jesus College and named after it's master and benefactor, John Repton.  I recalled my last attempt to visit the excellent Bengal Indian Restaurant which was located at the other end of the original building on the same site, only to find the whole block had been demolished. There's no mention of this on the plaque and although it's obvious by looking that the current building is dated from the 2000's, I felt like this was yet another deliberate move to cover up the pre-Grafton environment.

I carried on towards the mouth of The Grafton Centre, past the former Laurie and Maconnels building, now occupied by a Wilco. The original facade is maintained, and sticks out in stark contrast to the surrounding buildings and pedestrianised Fitzroy Street which are all very much post-Kite in feel, if not necessarily in age.

As I approached 'The Grafton' I could see the front entrance now entirely made of glass. The structure resembled a rhomboid giant greenhouse. Inside I could make out what looked like fluorescent tube lights in various colours hanging from the ceiling at different angles like light sabres from Star Wars. The purpose of these was never revealed.

As I entered I crossed the threshold from Fitzroy Street, into what used to be a continuation of Fitzroy Street before the Grafton Centre was built over it. The route of the main thoroughfare within the Grafton follows the same route. In a similar manner of a road built over a lost river, the thoroughfare had been built over a lost road, but attempted to replicate it in a virtual reality sort of way. The name 'Fitzroy' is mostly associated with 'Fitzrovia' in London, the area named after the Fitzroy Tavern and associated with  boozy bohemian types from the past.  Fitzrovia was up until the end of the 19th Century an estate of the Dukes of Grafton, ancestors of the first Duke of Grafton, Henry Fitzroy. Fitzroy meaning 'bastard', Henry was an illegitimate son of Charles II and presumably the Tavern was named after him. The third Duke of Grafton, Augustus, was an English Prime Minister in the 1700s. He had  studied at Cambridge and later became the Chancellor of the University, at the same time as being Prime Minister. Fitzroy Street and Grafton Street (a surviving street in the Kite), and ultimatlely the Grafton Centre were all named after him. Thus a connection between the Grafton and Fitzrovia, though somewhat tenuous, exists 

Donning headphones to protect myself from piped music and any tannoy announcements, I entered and merged with the hordes. I soon was forced to adopt the pace of 'the retail shuffle'; the act of walking at much reduced but varied speed with occasional sudden stops accompanied by vacant staring, either ahead, into shop units or at a mobile device.  It was easy to see where George Romeo got his inspiration for Dawn of The Dead.  Just inside an electronic blueprint mapped out which shops and other facilities occupied each 'unit'. I wondered at the energy efficiency of an electronic map as opposed to a printed one. Then recalled that the high rate of change of unit occupier probably made the e-version the better choice in this respect. I observed the  'light sabres' overhead and considered that they would probably make more sense after dark.

I can't say I noticed what was new upon first entrance, only what had disappeared over the years. The Reject Shop had long gone. So was the electronic sign that used to have a scrolling message in red text: 'Welcome to the Grafton Centre...' , displayed in a similar manner to Cefax where you had to stand and wait if you wanted the whole of the message, normally having arrived at the equivalent of page 3 out of 6. More recently the side arcade (not really an arcade but I can't think of the correct nomenclature) called Eden Hall  had closed to be redeveloped. This, along with Footlights, occupied the aforementioned Eden Chapel and had a small number of independent outlets which, along with the adjacent toilets, were in my mind had always been the most useful bit of the Grafton Centre. The entrance to Eden Hall had been blocked off and as far as I could tell was still in the process of  'being reconfigured to attract new leisure and retail operators'. I'm glad the architects Corpstorphine Wright also differentiate between retail and leisure. But what the end result will be remains to be seen. I had heard some time ago the names Pizza Hut and McDonalds being banded around but hopefully that's just a rumour. It would be nice to think a bit more imagination might be employed.

A sign a bit further up was advertising 'Food Social'. This referred to an area I had yet to reach where various food outlets ply their wears. The names were not familiar to me: Chi, Burger Priest, Duck Truck. The post hipster sounding names tuned out to be located in the area around the cinema that used to contain Burger King and similar establishments but now contained post-hipster food trucks. It's easy to be cynical about these things, but encouragingly it seems evening events with music will be held with local beer available, so this did sound like a marked improvement.

Something called 'The Campus' was occupying a shop unit further along. Looking in from across the way I couldn't work out what this was. Post walk, I discovered it is a 'community hub' where you can 'work, study and relax'. There's a book exchange and what look like comfy seats and places to charge electronic devices. It hadn't occurred to me that the Grafton would feature something like this and I assumed it was some sort of language school.  Another surprisingly positive sounding development.

Opposite was what I took to be the managers/staff office. The modern equivalent of where the security pronouncements used to emanate. I saw no security men today and heard no announcements. This initially felt like a good thing, but then I realised that they have been made redundant by silent CCTV and other robotic means of monitoring which you can neither see or hear so can't run away from.

Past the lifts, no longer Great Glass elevators but inconspicuous steel doors in a grey wall, I passed the Ping Pong Parlour, another unit not being used for retail but apparently where people could play table tennis for free. Whether this and The Campus are temporary arrangements, just to fill units which the owners are having trouble letting, or whether a permanent feature remains to be seen. But I started to feel a bit more optimistic that maybe the changes afoot in the Grafton were for the better. Dwelling on this was short lived, since the inevitable urge to pee had been creeping up for some time and was now feeling more urgent.Since I hadn't been able to avail myself of the old  Eden Hall facilities and not realising there were some new ones through a doorway I'd already past without seeing, I headed to those located upstairs next to the 'food social'. Expectations of relief were short lived as I found an attendant pulling a canvas barrier across the entrance. Apparently there was no water so the loos had to be closed. This could have been more of a disaster but the distance to alternative facilities would have been too much for some. I didn't know they existed and shuffled off, having to use mind over matter to suppress the urge which faded after a while.

I had a wander round the 'food social' area, which took my mid off things. Above/in front of the old BHS I observed the view. The feature that my eyes were drawn to the most was the roof, a glass apex which again resembled a giant greenhouse. The amount of natural light was welcome and I developed the urge to be the other side of the glass. The 'insideness' of the Grafton was becoming oppressive despite this obvious attempt to alleviate it by the architects.

The urge to escape lead me up the stairs and onto the roof of the East car park, where I also hoped I might find a discrete corner to pee. Emerging through the door into the outside, I was immediately transferred into a different landscape. Barely anyone had parked on the top floor and in contrast to the inside it was devoid of people. Views of the City on all sides were incredible, in an ordinary sense. I located various landmarks, and saw others I couldn't recognise. The place was familiar but seen through a lens of unfamiliar perspective it took some time to get my bearings, and even then they were not total. Christ's Church was the nearest landmark. From this angle, it looked like a mini-Kings College Chapel. The spotless white car in the foreground was from this perspective about the same size as the church. The  juxtaposition of something earthy from the old Kite (the Church)

and the new sterile car, which would probably be replaced by it's owner within three years on a PCP deal, was stark. The view beyond the Grafton was of roofs that mostly pre-dated it, reinforcing the feel of it as a fortress or castle.

I wandered around the deserted car park roof for a while. The low sun produced a sheen on the damp floor, making it resemble a grey ice rink. Various posts protruded up from the ground adding to the  alien and liminal atmosphere. The sky was a vast panorama with bizarre and dramatic cloud formations. All was in stark contrast to what was below. Having emerged into this environment I felt like the character from THX1138 when he sees the outdoors and the sun rise for the first time, having escaped an underground existence in a sterile white environment.

A close encounter with a broadcasting and monitoring post reigned in my sense of freedom while increasing the feeling of liminality. Air vents, pipes and extractor fans dominated the flat expense a level below adding to the landscape of vertical periphery.

I wandered around in this environment apparently unnoticed (other than maybe on CCTV) for some time. I could I suppose have been mistaken for someone coming or going from their car. I felt anonymous even though I ought to have been fairly conspicuous since I had no conventional purpose to be here. After about 10 minutes I looked down towards the back of Burleigh Street. The former Boat Race can be seen to the far left, obscuring WT's and the smoking huddle outside. In the centre are the tradesman's entrances to various shops that face out onto the street. One of these, second or third along, used to belong to a double glazing firm called 'Allied Windows' where I had two stints in the mid 1990s cold calling people who mostly did not want double glazing and were less than pleased to hear from me. My task was to convince them they were interested in hearing about our 'special offers' and have a greasy salesman turn up later in the week to convince them further. Judging my the lack of take up of such a poor quality offer, this must have been at the fag end of the double glazing cold calling 'boom'. In earlier years people were probably more easily convinced that reps were 'in their area' and that a bargain was to be had. Once word got round that they were going to get two or three hours of hard sell and the 'special offers' were nothing of the sort,  people were rightly more sceptical. The job was mind numbing, monotonously ringing people from a ripped out page of a two year old phone book. But  I suppose helped me develop a thick skin being on the receiving end of a certain amount of well deserved verbal abuse. You could smoke (and on Fridays drink) on the job which boosted morale slightly.  Most staff were students like me who only lasted a matter of weeks or months. The only other workers were two women in their 50s or 60s who seemed to be long term employees. They were still there when I returned to do a my second stint nearly a year after the first. They smoked the most out of anyone, which was not surprising.

I left the car park by a different exit, no quite sure where I would eventually emerge and resigned to not finding somewhere it was safe to pee. I made my was down the stairs, soon to be confronted by a door where there was no thororougfare and 'no entry to the store'.  The store in question was Debenhams. This didn't help navigation much, since Debenhams was the largest and most complex 'store' with the most entry/exit points.

Not fancying the invitation to 'push bar to open' on what was presumably an emergency exit I carried on down the stairwell to be faced by another door which was 'sonic alarmed'. I continued my decent, not encountering a single other person.

With some relief, I eventually came out of a door into daylight, albeit into some sort of side exit which didn't look like one the public was supposed to use. I found myself in a sort of dark enclave where I could see the outside world waiting through an open metal gate in front of me. Behind was a brown wooden door, presumably locked, with a letterbox shaped aperture about two thirds of the way up and one of those plastic butchers curtains hanging at the side. Not unlike something from a scene in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, this sight hastened my departure.

I was glad to be back 'on the outside' and wandered along East Road onto which I had been ejected from the back end of The Grafton. I headed via Burleigh Street into the surviving area of  Victorian Streets where the garden of Eden once stood until reached the Elm Tree pub. Here, after finally relieving myself, I sat for a while with a half pint for a short period on contemplation. From this location, in one of a trio of three pubs located at the confluence of Prospect Row and Eden Street, I felt closer to the genius loci of the old Kite. I recalled the recent memory of the window display of the corner shop over the road, now a hairdressers. This had been made up of several stacks of Andrex toilet paper which never seemed to alter and could well have been there since  before the days of colour television. The three pubs felt like guardians protecting the remaining Victorian Kite from further development.  But the  main reason they are still here is that they are protected by being part of a conservation area and one which has been gentrified, tow things that usually go together. Both seem to have protected this part of the Kite from the demolition and development. It seemed paradoxical, if unsurprising, that the part of the Kite that has survived, at least in it's Victorian physical form, is not one that continued to provide an area lived and worked in by any working class 'town' people. At the same time it is the part that was lost to the Grafton Centre that attracts these people back to an area that in a former age they might have feasibly have been able to live and work in. Now they are mostly sucked in from peripheral areas, often remote and some distance away, to shop or go to work. Whether the latest 'renovations' to The Grafton are an attempt to appeal more to a local middle class crowd and will result in another push out to the periphery for the 'town' remains to be seen. I resolved not to leave my next visit so long, hopefully before it eventually (as it surely will) becomes largely serviced accommodation.