ASH TUNNEL (CMT Trail stop 10)

For the trail of the Cambridge Museum of Technology, we've divided the spaces into eleven stops. Each stop is offered as a transcription (see below) illustrated for those who are not able-bodied to see the details of the site through descriptions and photography.  You can use the audio guide online or in situ which is provided freely here, stop by stop, starting with ASH TUNNEL (CMT Trail stop 10) AUDIO.

CMT TRAIL STOP 10 WORDS SPOKEN BY CAMBRIDGE MUSEUM OF TECHNOLOGY'S CURATOR, PAM HALLS: Here we are in the Ash Tunnel.  Have a look here you can see the back ends of the boiler tubes that we saw in the Boiler Room and next to the tubes you can see a pit full of ash which is where the ash that came from burning the rubbish ended up it was then raked out by the workers here into little trucks. Originally there was a little railway going through here, we’ve reconstructed some of it but it is not entirely original.  So there were railway lines going out and the workers here raked out the hot, smelly, very unpleasant ash that came from the town's rubbish into these little tracks here then, by hand, they pushed them along the tracks outside where there's a little turntable, a turn plate, so they were swung round and then they were hauled up the incline, the hill, to the top site using a winch engine which was powered by steam.  So although we haven't got the original Ash Railway here at the museum we have tried to recreate it so that people can understand what happened.  And this clinker, this is what it’s called, the clinker that came out of the burning process was then used to fill in some of the brick pits around this area because originally they dug holes in the ground they pulled out the clay to make bricks.  When that industry stopped round here there were great holes in the ground and they were filled up with clinker like this and rubbish and anything else they could think of to put down there.  Also, during the war it was used to make, the Second World War, it was used to make air fields, also used in road building. Now the boilers could not be used to burn everything.  Glass was not put in the boilers because it would have melted and completely messed up the fire grates. Bits of crockery couldn't be burnt because nothing happened to them they just stayed exactly the same and metal wasn't burned because it was really useful, it used to be sorted out from the rubbish and taken away and it could be recycled, it could be sold and used again so metal was always taken out.  It does mean that around the site, the museum site, we occasionally when we do bit of digging pull up old bottles but they are fascinating because they are evidence of old industries in Cambridge things like local breweries,  and local mineral waters, they all had their own special bottles with their names on them and we find these when we do little excavations around the site and crucially during the lifetime of this station plastics were not thrown away as much as they are today.

ILLUSTRATION

RECYCLING IN THE PAST AND RESONANCES FOR TODAY

People in their own houses were much better at recycling than we are now. If they had an old dress they would make it into something new. So there probably wasn’t that much going into the rubbish apart from vegetable matter also crucially were the contents of fires, the coal that you had burnt in your own fire, the ashes, were put into the rubbish bins and that was very important for this place because although a domestic fire had probably extracted as much energy as it could from the ashes when they came here and were tipped into the destructor at much high-temperature there was still that little bit of energy left to be extracted.  In fact it was when people stopped having so many open fires that partly, partly,  led to rubbish not being used so much to power the steam engines.

ILLUSTRATION: CHILDREN AT TOP OF STAIRS & THE BLACK CONE AIR-RAID SHELTER

EN-ROUTE TO TIPPING BAY (CMT TRAIL stop 11)

We are going to go back out through the door and then turn left, go up these stairs here.  Ah, yes this rather interesting black cone which is big enough for someone to get in is an air raid shelter.  It with designed during the First World War and the idea was it is a portable air raid shelter.  It would be used in places where people would have an awfully long way to run to their nearest shelter say in goods yards.   We have seen pictures of them on corners of the street and one person could get in there to shelter.  This one was actually used in the Second World War and after the war it was used to store ice by a local fishmonger. 

Up the stairs we go.  Do watch out they can be a little bit slippery. And round the corner onto another flight of steps. Up the stairs and hard left.  

TRAIL STOP PHOTOS & SELFIES: Please do use social media to submit an arty photo or a selfie taken at this stop.  Have a go to take an arty photo of an object.  Or fit in your entire family with the chimney! Historyworks will upload photos to the trail stop to share with others! All you have to do is share on twitter using @historyworkstv and @CamTechMuseum or email your photos to the team at historyworkstv@gmail.com HAPPY SNAPPING :-)

HAVE A LOOK AT PHOTOS AT THE CAMBRIDGE MUSEUM OF CAMBRIDGE MOSTLY TAKEN BY THE HISTORYWORKS TEAM SHOWING DETAILS OF MACHINES TO ILLUSTRATE THE TRAIL STOPS, BUT PLEASE SEE THAT THESE NOW INLUDE SELFIES AND ARTY PHOTOS FROM THE STOBBS IP PARTICIPANTS, ADDED TO PHOTOS TAKEN BY HELEN WEINSTEIN & MARIO SATCHWELL & JON CALVER OF HISTORYWORKS: