Shire Hall

For some reason, the FT has chosen the Shire Hall at Cambridge to illustrate a piece about Tory plans to get rid of district councils. Plans which will they suggest will cause lots of fuss, not least because many of the Tory faithful are active in local government and these plans appear to mean a lot less councillors. Ironic that the Westminster Parliament is all set to slash the number of local councillors, but is very reluctant to cut their own House of Common down to a more sensible size.

However, the present post is not about that, rather a bit of nostalgia for the Shire Hall of my childhood.

As I recall it, the low building behind the blue sign used to be some kind of medical and/or dental facility for children. Where you went, inter alia, to be checked over when you wanted to work while under 16. There may have been another, similar building a bit further round to the left. Off camera to the right was another low building, more shed than brick, which housed the County Library - with the much grander City Library then being round the back of the City Hall a couple of miles down the road, across the river.

Shire Hall stands at the top of Castle Street, which climbs up Castle Hill from the river a few hundred yards to the south east. So further round to the left still was Castle Mound and at the foot of Castle Mound there used to be a middle sized conifer of some kind, around which county employees and their families would gather for Christmas Carols & Santa, one work-day evening shortly before Christmas. Nothing left of the castle itself; the work, I think, of Cromwell.

I am not sure if I ever got into the main building, but I must have cycled past it, on the way to and from school if for no other reason, hundreds, if not thousands, of times. Looking more or less the same then as it is looking now.

PS: checking with gmaps the following (Thursday) morning, I find that my memory of Castle Street is actually rather poor and that, that apart, it has changed a great deal. But what used to be the police headquarters - whether for county, city or both I no longer remember - more or less in front of Shire Hall, is still there, more or less untouched, except that the large cylindrical air-raid siren, very much visible on the flat roof above the main entrance, has gone. I think that when I was a child, they were still into testing it occasionally, in case of it ever being needed again.