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29 Bridge Street / the Crow / the Tawbert

History of 29 Bridge Street

T E Faber, An Intimate History of the Parish of St Clement’s, 2006, provides much detail on the early history of this site.

1959 Royal Commission on Historical Monuments Survey of Cambridge: built in the 16th or 17th cent. and much altered and heightened in the 19th. The chimney-stack on the NE is of the 18th cent.

Rent for no. 29 can be followed back through Corpus records. the property probably came to Corpus, with several others in 1352, having been given previously to one of two gilds which founded the college in that year.

1382 – 91/2: John Sterre paid 10s

1466: Thomas Salter paid 13s 4d.

circa 1549: according to the will of John Richardson, who owned no. 28 Bridge Street, no. 29 was at the time an inn called the ‘Tawbert‘.

1567: lease granted to William Batemanson, cordiner, by ‘Bennet College’, i.e. Corpus.

1585: lease re-granted to edward Greathede yeoman in 1582

1585: leased to William Norgate M.A.

1598: to John Crofoote M.A., occupied by John Batemanson, cobbler

1602: to Christopher Myers, glover; occupied by William Batemanson, cordiner

1649: St John’s grant lease of no.30 to John Hills (lease of no. 29 granted to John Hills in 1652)

1652/53: William Griggs marries Jane Bullen in St Peter’s in 1652; Corpus lease dated February 1653 describes the occupant of no. 29 as Widow Bullen

1653-58: William Griggs

1659-76: Moses Griggs for Crow in 1672-73.

1666: John Hills has by now transferred leases to son-in-law Nicholas Tabor I

Both properties were in use as inns in the 17th cent. Occupied by two brothers, Moses and William Griggs. Moses married in St Peter’s in 1648, his second wife in St Clement’s in 1678, buried in Clement’s 1687. William married in St Peter’s in 1652 but had three children christened at St Clement’s.

1668: leases on both properties renewed

1677: Nicholas I died and his will mentions two houses which must be nos. 29 amd 30, namely, ‘the Crowe wherin lyeth Moses Griggs and the Peacock wherein lyeth …. Griggs.’

1683: Nicholas II renews leases. [likely that confusion in identities of properties happened]

1688: Crow demolished and rebuilt

1700: lease granted by Corpus to Edmund Glenister of Royston with William Robson as occupant

1716: Andrew Richards

1718: Thomas Richards

1752: The Crow not listed


1861:

Sarah Spanton, 87, late lodging house keeper, b Norfolk


1874: when colleges had to declare the property in Cambridge they owned, Corpus declared no. 30 and St John’s declared no. 29. However, there was clearly some confusion between the colleges as to the identity of the properties concerned!


1913:

Miss Hill, lodging house keeper


1961: St John’s sold property to sitting tenant


1962:

G E Nichols, antique dlr

Jack Handman

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