A Field trip from Burwell to Upware May 19th 1911 - old photograph album
The field trip party outside the No Hurry Inn at Upware, Cambridgeshire 1911
This is an amazing little find and I am thrilled to be able to share it with you, it features one of my favourite Cambridge characters; Professor Thomas McKenny Hughes - I have worked with, and referenced, so many of his archaeological and geological reports within my own work, so to find these newly discovered photographs of him taking a field trip, which in turn also shows us previously unknown photographs of our local areas and the town, is just a joy and thrill.
I have placed below, a picture of each photograph within the album and then beside it, a cropped close up. If you click on each photograph they should enlarge for you anyway but thought it would be good to include each picture in situ too, in part because the album contains some pencil annotations for some of the photographs, which you may like to see the original of.
The party begins their journey by meeting at Burwell. The date is given as May 19th 1911. The names written below, from left to right are: Shell? Straham, Parker, Baker, Hughes, Leach, Jewson, Smith, Jack - there are not names for all the people within this photograph - for your reference I will add the close up of Professor Hughes below, so you can see the positioning of the people mentioned better.
Professor Hughes
Close up
Strachan, Tim? Professor Baker, Professor Hughes.
Embarking at Burwell. The party travel by boat to Upware.
The junction of Anchor Lane and Burwell Lode, in Burwell - could the house on the left be the one in the pictures above - is there where they began and ended their journey?
The fun begins, exploring the geology and fossils at Upware.
I remember going on a school trip c.1988 to Burwell House where we stayed for a couple of nights, and one of the trips was to go out to Upware, where there was a sort of nature centre. We went to the chalk pit area shown above and looked for fossils and back in the centre we got to dissect owl pellets and stick all the little bones that came from within them, on to card to take home! The point being that these ‘pits’ at Upware were still being visited in the 1980’s… when did that stop? the centre that we visited on the school trip is no longer there, can we still access the pits today? Comment below if you have any information :)
Upware.
Aerial view of Upware, 2025
Upware.
Upware.
Upware.
In the field at Upware.
Upware.
The party stop off at the No Hurry Inn at Upware for much needed refreshments, before heading back to Burwell.
The Five Miles From Anywhere No Hurry Inn Today
You can visit their website HERE.
Upware - Professor Hughes centre of photographs.
Upware - Professor Hughes centre of photographs.
Taking from the boat on the journey back to Burwell from Upware. Notice the horse on the bank which is aiding in pulling the boat along - you can see the rope going across the picture.
Between Burwell and Upware.
Between Burwell and Upware.
Returning home. Notice the windmill/pump in this picture.
Returning to Burwell on Burwell Lode. To the left, on the other side of the bank that the horse is on you can see Commissioners’ Drain.
Burwell Lode, the fork in the waterway as seen in the pictures above.
Returning to Burwell from Upware.
Please feel free to add any further comments regarding these photographs by using the ‘Comments’ box below.