The Grafton Centre
Cambridge's covered shopping mall on the east side of the centre, opened in 1984.
The Grafton is a covered shopping mall on the eastern side of central Cambridge, with entrances from Fitzroy Street, Burleigh Street, East Road and Newmarket Road. It is considerably larger than Lion Yard, the older covered centre in the middle of town, and sits a short walk from the pedestrian core of the city.
How it came about
Plans for a big shopping development on this patch of Victorian terraces were first floated in the 1950 Holford-Wright planning report. A scheme by Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano won council approval in 1973 but was dropped on cost grounds. Grosvenor Developments built the mall that exists today during the late 1970s and early 1980s, and Queen Elizabeth II opened it in 1984. The layout is a long east-west run on two levels, broken up by three atria.
Practical notes
The centre's own site gives opening hours of 09:00-17:30 Monday to Friday, 09:00-18:00 on Saturday and 11:00-17:00 on Sunday, and warns that individual shops may keep different hours. It describes a five-minute walk from the city centre across Christ's Pieces and New Square, and about twenty minutes on foot from the railway station. A bus interchange on site serves the Park and Ride route from Newmarket Road, and the centre has its own car parks. The centre's site also promotes "The Campus", described as a space for the community of all ages to work, study and relax.
Nearby
Within a few minutes' walk
