IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
New Road, CAMBRIDGE, CB22 3BW

Near the corner of Belbin Way on a cloudless January morning.

West entry to Sawston, viewed from Mill Lane, which continues to the right, and splits into New Road, continuing to the left.

Houses of various ages, opposite the allotments, photographed on a cloudless January morning.

Henry Morris (1889-1961) was Secretary of Education for Cambridgeshire from 1922-1954. He was instrumental in the creation of a new type of educational institution: the Village College. Sawston Village College, the first, was the first state school to have a separate hall; a well furnished adult wing, a library for school and community use, a medical services room, playing fields with changing facilities for students and other community members, plus a warden's house.

Photographed from the corner of Challis Close on a cloudless January morning.

"This foundation stone was laid on the third day of March 1932 by Mrs H.G. Spicer" Harry Spicer was one of Sawston's principal landowners and employers, having bought the paper mill on the western fringe of the village in 1917. He and his wife were considerable benefactors to the parish, donating the land for the Village College in 1930 and building what is now the Marven Centre for use as a theatre and cinema two years later. The family firm of Spicers became a leading supplier of stationery. For location see Image, where the stone is to the right of the entrance doors.

On the campus of Sawston Village College in New Road, this building was opened in 1932 as a community theatre - see Image - after a dispute concerning performances at the college, and operated as a cinema until 1963, when a decline in patronage following the advance of television led to its closure. According to the British Film Institute's website http://www.bfi.org.uk/neighbourhoodcinema/sawston-cinema "In 2008 the Cambridge Film Trust helped the school re-establish screenings in the building, with support from the UK Film Council. Young people were trained at that time to run the cinema for the community and young people continue to be involved in screenings, enjoying working in both front-of-house roles and in projection. Young people involvement in the cinema makes a visit to Sawston Cinema a unique experience." In 2011 the building was renamed in honour of John Marven, a former Principal of the Village College. It is typical of the small-town cinemas of the 1930s, constructed in the local yellow stock brick but dignified by a minimal whitewashed portico flanked by a couple of token Tuscan columns. Pevsner ignored it in his Cambridgeshire surveys of 1954 and 1970, but Simon Bradley in his 2014 revision briefly sums up its style as "blockish". In December 2016 a planning application was lodged for "retention of the Marven Centre, demolition of existing temporary portacabin [sic] and storage unit and erection of a single storey community hub building, to be used as a library, meeting rooms, offices and activity space." For a side view see Humphrey Bolton's Image See also http://sawstoncinema.org.uk/about-sawston-cinema/

This was built next to the Village College by local businessman Harry Spicer. who had given the land for the adjacent Village College. It was opened in 1932. It closed in 1960 and was used as a youth and community centre until it was re-opened as a cinema, run by volunteers, at the end of 2008. See http://sawstoncinema.org.uk/about-sawston-cinema/ .

Sawston fire station, Mill Lane, Sawston, Cambridgeshire

Photographed from the corner of Town Close on a sparkling January morning.