Samuel Pepys liked his beer

Well its time to make that trip to the central library, its something I dont really want to do but I'm sure it will be worthwhile.Perhaps I have an allergy to lots of books in a relatively small space,or it might just be the cambridge library itself, but if I can make it up to the third floor then I'm sure it will be worth it.So what do I need to find out? Well Ive been reading more about samuel pepys and apparently he used to stay in the falcon pub which was on the south side of petty cury and was said to be the biggest pub in cambridge , and queen elizabeth the first was supposed to have stayed there.Its more evidence to put to the people responsible for destroying valuble parts of the city, or not, maybe its just good enough to write about it.I dont know anything about the falcon so I'll see what I can find, also I'll try and find out as much as I can about fitzroy street, and whether I can get my hands on copies of the original building plans so I can get started on my model of the street, ok I couldnt find anyone else to make the model for me so I'm doing it on my own.Ive already found an old street map circa 1948 which shows the streets that were wiped out in the grafton build.Losing whole streets is almost as bad as losing pubs, and what if the street that was knocked down had a pub on it? doesnt bare thinking about.Oh no I just found out that samuel pepys used to visit the rose public house a lot, well the building is still there, hurrah, but guess what?, its been turned into a mcdonalds.Well its too late now but perhaps I should have dressed as samuel pepys for halloween and gone into mcdonalds and ordered a pint of beer.

The Old English Gentleman

Well this is a pub that used to stand in fitzroy street, a bit further along from the ancient druids and to be honest I dont remember it at all.I read an old article from 1964 when the local paper did a feature on fitzroy street and there was a photo showing the view across the bar with the landlord on one side and a regular on the other, and the wallpaper had pictures of the Beatles on it.This part of the street was already being knocked down bit by bit.The whole thing sounds very devious: announce a plan for a shopping center in 1950 then not make a definite decision on it for the next 25 years , so old houses arent looked after and new shops dont risk setting up.Anyway lets hear it for the old english gentleman, anyone out there who remembers it feel free to post a comment.I dont know exactly when it was demolished but I do remember something that could be connected to it. One sunday afternoon when I was living at number 85 so its between 1971 and 1973, I remember being in a car park with friends playing football when I noticed these square bits of card lying around all over the place, they turned out to be beer mats, lots of beer mats which I eagerly collected up, I dont know what I did with them I dont remember having them for long, but could they have been from the Old English Gentleman?, I must find out when it was actually knocked down or closed, whichever came first, a trip to the city library is due......

Great park benches I have sat on

I dont know about that title,I think we just need more park benches and its nice when they have a little plaque on them with something like in memory of mr wibbet who had a great time sitting on this bench.
Did you know that during the second world war Glen Miller and his orchestra played at the guildhall in Cambridge? A local told me that, I must try to talk to more people who have lived in cambridge for a long time, I knew someone who had seen the Beatles play back in 1963 when she was 13 and she was screaming along with the rest of them, to me thats a much better than going on one of those tours and looking at the university buildings for a couple of hours, I admit I havent been on one but I will one day and I'll make sure I report back.The one tour I did go on concentrated on the town and it was great apart from stopping in the late 1800s like I have mentioned before.Unfortunately when my family got to cambridge things were already going downhill and the year after they knocked down one side of petty cury and started building the car park and what was to become the lion yard shopping arcade, lion yard arfter the red lion hotel that was destroyed. I just remember boards lining one side of petty cury and nothing of the buildings that were demolished.My older brother had a painting stuck up there along with other kids from his school, I cant recall exactly what it was but for some reason in my minds eye I see the colour brown featuring in it a lot.But there must be many people who remember the old petty cury, so feel free to post a comment if you are one of the lucky ones. I'll be back tomorrow for another lost pub.

Its never too late

I know the old parts of cambridge that have been demolished can never be brought back but I still think its not too late to do something about it so I have decided to boycott the grafton from now on, alright I admit I did go there when it was first opened and ive seen a few films at the multi plex cinema , actually it cant really be called a cinema, its a collection of rooms with a screen at one end.A real cinema in the city center closed down because it couldnt compete with the one in the grafton, and that cinema was far better than any of those rooms, it had a bigger screen and a far better sound system, its come back to life sort of as a smaller independant arty cinema but the rest of the building is a big pub, one of the largest in England ive heard, and for me its one of the worst ive ever been in.
Right what else can I do, well there is the local paper, its not too bad but these days i'm afraid its lost a lot of character and has gone down the tabloid route with terrible headlines littered with puns. I am not sure if the locals just think well its happened now so I wont say anything about it but I dont think a lot of people actually know about some of the great things cambridge has lost, an old inn called the three tuns which was built in the 1600s and the bloke who got famous for writing a diary that included the fire of london, it is a good read to be honest, yes none other than sam pepys, well he drank himself to oblivion there many times , and olly cromwell, he dropped in as well.Thats gone now and there is an ugly building in its place, I think its a hostel for the students of kings college, the old church next to it is still there thank goodness, that was built in the 13th century no less.Well you might say that old inn was knocked down a long time ago but it wasnt, it was 1959 and it was a listed building.There are many more examples of our history that have been lost to the corporate machine or whatever you choose to call it.So really the most anyone can do about what has happened in cambridge is to learn from the past mistakes and to not let it happen again in other towns and cities in the future, yes I know heh, its not going to happen.

Parkers Piece? What is that?

To me parkers piece has a definite meaning because I know what it is, but to someone who doesn't then it could mean a few things, so to clarify, way back in the 1600s a bloke called Robert Parker had this bit of land and its a miracle its still just an area of grass with foot paths intersecting it. So parkers piece isnt parkers wig, or his gun, or who knows what else.Anyway I said there was history associated with it but its very boring really,ive staggered across it a few times late at night going from one pub to another, I spent the last hour or so of 1999 there, a very miserable occasion to say the least, and I never did like that prince song but of course it had to be played just before midnight, hes been partying like its 1999 since 1984 so when 1999 actually arrived it just seemed like a lazy idea to play it, and to party like it was 1999 surely wouldnt be as good when it actually was 1999. One sort of interesting thing about the piece is that there had been plans to have an underground car park there so the surface wouldnt be affected, I really like that idea but oh no they had to knock half of the city center down instead and put one of those ugly multi storey car parks up, that was 1972. Well, they've just demolished that car park in the last few months, good riddance I say but it doesnt bring back all the character that used to be there, and who knows what kind of monstrosity is going to rise from the ashes.

Doesnt feel like home anymore

So bit by bit my past is being taken away, its there in my mind thats true, but its sad to see places I knew well demolished and replaced by bland characterless buildings. I walked past my old primary school not long ago and the playground area had been covered over with new tarmac,the school was there so I suppose thats a good thing but it still felt sad to think the ground where I used to walk on had gone forever.Actually I think I can still follow the same route from my old house to school that I first did 34 years ago but I'd have to start outside a card shop in the grafton, then its down fitzroy street, turn left into eden street past two pubs, then down a passage way, thats still there, I cycled down it not long ago in a hail of foul mouthed abuse from a man who insisted it was a footpath only, I tried to tell him it was for both pedestrians and cyclists but he didnt want to hear that, well I didnt feel like it would be a good idea to try to reason with him so I carried on cycling and he carried on shouting.From his appearence he seemed harmless enough, mid 50s,quite a posh accent,normal hair, but his face looked like he had covered it with talcum powder so it made him look a bit strange. Anyway at the end of the passageway it opens up onto parkers piece, and you can see the big catholic church and my old school is next to that.Parkers piece has a lot of history associated with it and I'll write about that tomorrow.

Model making and being sick outside pubs

You know those model train enthusiasts who make replica models of real railway stations?, well I think it would be a great idea to have a model of cambridge done, especially the streets that used to make up an area called the kite, thats mostly gone now and there is a shopping center in its place, a miserable thing that doesnt really deserve any words wasted on it.Well yes there are old pictures of the kite area but I think a 3 dimensional model would be great, I lived in fitzroy street fom the age of eight to ten and where our house was is now part of the grafton, opposite was the ancient druids, a pub, I remember seeing a bloke stumbling out of there and bringing up who knows how many pints onto the pavement. I was shocked by the behaviour I witnessed, yet I wasnt to know that one day I would be keeping that very same tradition alive, alas there was no chance of doing it outside the ancient druids though, that went in the late 70s.They opened a new pub round the corner and called it the same name but it was more like a big conservatory and had no character at all so I didnt spend much time in it, dont know whats happened to it I havent been round that part of town for a while.Anyway I think having a model of the kite area somewhere in the grafton would be an extremely good idea, I might mention it to my local paper but I probably wont, I dont think they would be interested.

The subject isnt the date anymore

Its sunday and sunny here, Autumn must be the best time of year surely, the people ive met who say summer is their favourite month usually have plenty of time on their hands to do what they want when they want to, its not nice having to do something despite the weather, ok rain is bad but thats not really a seasonal thing, but hot sunny weather + a deadline = misery.
Ok back to cambridge, actually not today, how about I have not talking about cambridge on sundays as a rule, so that goes well with the day of rest thing .
Well the title of this blog is the rambling gardener and I havent mentioned gardening at all yet, to be honest I couldnt think of a title that would cover everything I wanted to write about but I suppose I am a gardener by trade although these days its being taken over by the building industry with all that hard landscaping going on.I do have lots of ideas about gardening and one day I will write my own gardening book although I think it would have to be TV personality first then the book in that order and I dont think I would like to be a gardening personality,I dont think I have the chin for it.

Saturday October 22nd

Every saturday I'll name a pub that has gone from cambridge, I used to think pubs were always safe and in no danger of disapearing from our streets, how wrong I was.So todays lost pub is "The Foresters", a great name,finally closed in 1986 to make way for office space, a Tolly cobbold pub, never went in but it looked interesting from the outside, glazed windows of course, not like these days where you can see right into pubs, whats that all about?, its the same with bookmakers.Anyway lets remember the Foresters today, the pub that stood on the corner of burleigh street and city road.

Friday October 21st

I dont think there is any excuse for turning the victoria cinema into a marks and spencers, others may think there is no excuse for waiting four hours to see Star Wars, I didnt really enjoy the film though and felt like I had missed something, after all it was supposed to be an incredible film etc etc but now I dont feel so bad about not liking it. Ok I did enjoy the Empire strikes back but it stands on its own as a good movie, I find the whole Star wars thing very shallow and money driven.Anyway the marks and spencers incident isnt the only example of old established places being taken over by big names who seem to just appear wherever they like.Woolworths has only recently been taken over by Next, nothing against Next apart from the clothes it sells and the name itself which just sounds like someone tried to think of the most boring and mundane word for a clothes store. Woolworths is where I bought my first single, ok it was the wombles with wombling merry christmas, happy? I have many other good memories and its surely a must for any city or town to have a woolworths. Well its gone and now cambridge has two next stores.Is this what they call progress?.

Thursday october 20th

Well hello there and welcome, here you will find my thoughts on whatever I think about, I live in Cambridge UK and have done since 1971 so I have seen a lot of changes and most arent pretty, but it is all interesting stuff so I will be writing a lot about cambridge itself, the history and how things have changed particularly over the last 50 or so years.If you go on a guided tour of cambridge you will hear a lot about how the city began, its all good to know but I am more interested in the fact that the Beatles played here in 1963, shallow you might say? and I would answer yes ok but there is room for that sort of thing, ive only been on one tour and it was ok but it finished in the late 1800s, well I wanted to know about the more recent history of Cambridge and so I did my own research.One thing though, the cambridge I will write about is the town not the university, there is plenty of information about that already, the only thing I found interesting about university life was when they filmed chariots of fire here, a film about the 1926 Olympics I think, and I saw it in the victoria cinema in market square, I qued up for four hours to see star wars there when it opened in 1977, saw Jaws there in 1975, now its a cinema no more but a marks and sparks food store, how depressing .