Giants Grave Information Board, Cherry Hinton

Image: © David Hillas Taken: 26 Jan 2019

Situated in High Street CB1 9HY, this information board has the following wording: GIANTS GRAVE AN ANCIENT OASIS OF CHERRY HINTON Left side This large dip, at the southern end of the village of Cherry Hinton, in Mill End, contains a fresh, spring pool, fed by several springs which break-forth from the underlying chalk at the north-western base of the Gog Magog Hills. The springs and their pool go on to form the Cherry Hinton Brook, which runs in a north-westerly direction until it reaches the River Cam at Stourbridge Common. This site is known locally by several names. It is known as Spring Head, Robin Hoods Dip, and most commonly, as Giants Grave. The name Giants Grave is thought to be after the giant Gogmagog, which legend says, lived nearby and was buried here. In the 19th Century some Iron Age burials were unearthed locally on Lime Kiln Hill, where the skeletons were thought to be unusually tall (Cherry Hinton Chronicle, 1854). Middle column The water flowing from the site provided a reason for settlement in the Mill End area of Cherry Hinton. A water supply was important for the growth of the village, particularly as a cottage industry in the village was laundering for the Cambridge Colleges, as depicted on the Cherry Hinton village sign. So plentiful was the flow of water from the springs and through the Cherry Hinton Brook, that in the past, there were at least two watermills on the Brook route through to the River Cam. Top right In time, the water here became a major water supply for the growing population of Cambridge in the later part of the 19th Century. The surrounding land and water supply were bought by the Cambridge University and Town Waterworks Company in 1852. During this time, an agreement was made with the Waterworks Company and John Okes, the owner of Cherry Hinton Hall, to supply a specific gallonage of water to feed the ornamental fish lakes within the grounds of the Hall. This, along with the construction of the water reservoirs on top of Lime Kiln Hill and the subsequent drawing of the water, lessened the supply of water flowing from the brook, which resulted in the last of the remaining water mills (The Paper Mill on Newmarket Road, Cambridge) finally closing down by 1910. Middle right An archaeological dig on the site in 2003 produced a wealth of domestic and building materials from the 19th and 20th Centuries, including some burnt material, possibly from the demolition of the original Robin Hood public house across the road to the east. The site was re-landscaped, the road junction widened and the slope surrounding the spring raised and steepened in the 1960s. Lower right Along with some of the finds shown in the photographs, perhaps the most interesting find was a piece of worked clunch (clunch is high quality chalk) which had been carved. This may be some of the first artifactual evidence of the medieval stonemasons working in Cherry Hinton on materials for building some of the Cambridge Colleges in the 13th and 14th Centuries. The photographs of finds also show various pieces of bone, pottery, clay pipe stem and a Scott's Emulsion bottle. These photographs can be seen above the lower right paragraph. The photo at bottom left is of "Cherry Hinton. The Spring Head" whilst the background picture is "Looking down on the site from Lime Kiln Hill 1821 by Relham (Cambridge University Library).

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