Posh Blue Plaques
INVITE TO ORDER YOUR BLUE PLAQUE TO PARTICIPATE IN COMMUNITY PROJECT
A group of residents have donated hundreds of hours of time to research the house histories for every property on Ainsworth Street and Hooper Street led by Helen at HistoryWorks. Also many residents have found their deeds and shared with Helen so we are very grateful to all those who’ve assisted with the project. By late Autumn we hope to also add house histories for our neighbouring streets of Kingston, Sturton, Sleaford & Stone Streets & Rivar Place. All of these are available on the FREE website hosted by the Museum of Cambridge called Capturing Cambridge.
INFORMATION YOU NEED TO CHOSE FOR YOUR BLUE PLAQUE
Thus, if you live on Ainsworth Street or Hooper Street you should find all the info you need on the Capturing Cambridge website where you’ll find your property in the Sturton Town section. We’ve just published the histories of Ainsworth & Hooper for everyone to enjoy:
https://capturingcambridge.org/projects/sturton-town/
You’ll note that our resident research group has used the census entries on the sites you have to pay fees for on ‘Find My Past’ and ‘Ancestry’ and we’ve written up these census entries on ‘Capturing Cambridge’ for each property Plus we’ve added some fascinating stories we’ve found in newspaper archives, and from Helen’s research in the Cambridgeshire Archives out at Ely. So all you need to do is find your home on Capturing Cambridge, then chose a person you would like to remember on your house plaque from a census date of 1881, 1891 1901, or 1911. Also put down an interesting factoid about occupant if you wish to!
DESIGN OF BLUE PLAQUE VINYLS
The blue plaque vinyls will be produced via HistoryWorks and checked by our team for Victorian and contemporary typos. The plaques will be paid for by IronWorks who offered to support our project, so will be free for all residents. The plaque will be a roundel within 150mm x 150mm translucent frame & some have asked for vinyl to go on front door instead of front window. So you chose where to put plaque up to display to neighbours on the street. The roundels will peel off easily and will be Cambridge light blue with black writing.
FORM TO FILL IN INFO link via bitly = https://bit.ly/3CXxC9l
OR find FORM here
INFORMATION TO USE FOR YOUR BLUE PLAQUE= CENSUS, DEEDS, PARISH RECORDS, NEWSPAPERS – FIND RESOURCES FREE ONLINE HERE:
https://capturingcambridge.org/projects/sturton-town/
For help on chosing your blue plaque, ask Glennis if on Hooper Street; Helen on ‘upper’ Ainworth, or Laura if you are on ‘lower’ Ainsworth –but all can answer census questions about our research project on our house histories!
And if you want to go in deeper for your own history research beyond what we’ve produced on ‘Capturing Cambridge’ do look at the PROPERTY RESEARCH GUIDE by Mill Road History Society:
https://capturingcambridge.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/GUIDE_to_WRITING_BP-2nd_edn_illustr.pdf
CHOSING A BESPOKE BLUE PLAQUE
Please sign up below if you live on Ainsworth & Hooper Streets by 29th August so we can get to printers in order to have a full display ready for our Ainsworth Area Street Party planned for afternoon of Sunday 19th September, a chance to gather together in the street for our 'Edible' theme, and to celebrate our past, present, and future.
Therefore, all residents are invited to have a FREE posh blue plaque printed which will be displayed for our street party and festival in September, which we plan to distribute week before our Street Party. The blue plaque will be like a vinyl that will peel on/off your front window or door. You get to chose which date of census and who you want to celebrate for your house history! You just need to look at the community history project that HistoryWorks has been working on with volunteers from our streets. IronWorks has offered to pay for the printing of the vinyls, but volunteers on our streets have done all the research. For help with your blue plaque, you can ask Glennis on Hooper Street, or Helen on 'upper' Ainsworth, or Laura on 'lower Ainsworth and emails via the AARA email. Note we plan to print one bespoke blue plaque for every property so everyone can participate… For any questions about the census, your house history or the general history of the area, you can also pop by HistoryWorks for help, or email the Ainsworth Area Residents Association at AinsworthAreaRA@gmail.com
All you need to do is choose a person (or people, e.g. a husband and wife) from the profile for your house, and let us know what interests you about them - their occupation or an interesting factoid, e.g. that they had a lot of children. Then we can write text that will fit into a blue plaque.
Alternatively you can write the blue plaque text yourself! The text should ideally have no more than 80 characters. To fit the circular shape it should be about 4 or 5 lines, with the longest line about 20 characters. We like to include the name in caps, followed by the occupation or factoid, and the date and the connection to the house, e.g. "lived here in 1881".
Here are some examples from Hooper Street:
Ran a grocery shop here
for three decades
from 1891
#12
ELIZABETH DIVER
Sisters and laundresses
Ran a laundry business
here from the 1880s
#18
Gardener for Queens’ College
Lived here from 1911
with his wife Elizabeth and
their many children
#19
Widow and mangler, 25
Lived here in 1881 supporting
her three small children
and her young sister
#22
Shopkeeper and seamstress
Ran a business here from
1900 selling fancy drapery,
toys and hardware
