IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Hale Street, CAMBRIDGE, CB4 3BZ

Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, a pair of Carolina buddies has recently taken up residence in the gardens of Hale Street.

Lying in a back alley in the inner suburbs of Cambridge, this brick may be dated to some time between the late 1930s and early 1950s. The brickworks at Warboys Image in Huntingdonshire (absorbed into Cambridgeshire in 1974) operated between 1893 and 1984, extracting and firing the Upper Oxford clay from the local beds. Their most famous product was the so-called Warboys White, millions of which were shipped to build houses in nearby towns and as far afield as Nottinghamshire. Originally they were exported by rail, using the Great Northern & Great Eastern Joint line which ran adjacent to the works, but by 1930 road transport was used for most loads. In the 1930s Warboys, like many small brickyards across the country, was taken over by the London Brick Company. Activity was paused during the war years, probably to avoid interference with operations at the neighbouring RAF Warboys. From the 1950s production was concentrated on drainage articles rather than building bricks. Becoming increasingly uneconomic, the works were taken over by the Hanson Trust but finally closed in August 1984.

Squatting on the pavement in Clare Street.

This unusual yellow fungal structure was growing in a Cambridge garden. Identification proved difficult but it has been suggested that this may be a clump of Sulphur Tuft (Hypholoma fasiculare). http://www.mushroomdiary.co.uk/2011/07/sulphur-tuft/

The hemiparasite is here growing on a crab apple tree (Malus sp.) in a Cambridge garden.

The resident black and ginger cats, Smokey and Pretzel, offer feline cheer in lockdown from a window on Hale Street.

Self-sown wildflowers growing from a pavement crack add a splash of colour to Clare Street in Cambridge on a sultry June afternoon.