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Petersfield and Mill Road, Cambridge

Petersfield and Mill Road

Cambridge's most varied high street, and the Victorian streets built around it.

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Petersfield is the district on the city-centre side of the railway line, along the north-western half of Mill Road; Romsey lies on the other side. Mill Road itself is a busy road of independent businesses, churches and a mosque, running south-east from the edge of Parker's Piece. It began as a country lane, named for a windmill, and was transformed when the railway arrived in the mid-nineteenth century: The Mill Road area's population is recorded as 252 in 1801 and 25,091 by 1891.

What's here

Two colleges, Gonville and Caius and Corpus Christi, developed Petersfield, which explains why its streets carry the names of their fellows. Residents were often university employees, which made this the "gown" side of the divide. A workhouse opened here in 1838 and later became a maternity hospital and then sheltered housing.

Today the draw is the independent trade on Mill Road, plus a few landmarks of different kinds. The David Parr House is a terraced house on Gwydir Street preserved in the Arts and Crafts style; the decorative artist David Parr lived at 186 Gwydir Street from 1886 to 1927. The Cambridge Blue is a pub nearby, and Arjuna Wholefoods is an independent wholefood shop in the neighbourhood.

On the first Saturday in December the road hosts the Mill Road Winter Fair, which attracted at least 20,000 people in 2009.

Getting around

Mill Road is easily walked from the centre; crossing the railway bridge on Mill Road takes you into Romsey. Part of the road, including the bridge, closes to traffic during the Winter Fair. Anglia Ruskin University and Hughes Hall lie at the north-western end, and the cricket ground at Fenner's sits behind the latter.

Places in Petersfield and Mill Road