FORTHCOMING EVENTS

Saturday 7th July 2012. Olympic Torch passes through Newmarket.

For our calendar of meetings see the opening (Index) page

CORRESPONDENCE AND QUERIES appear on separate pages, to view the current page (7) select here
Contributions or comments on local history matters are always welcome - address at foot of this page.

Please note we are not a Family History Society.
Research into family history can be very time consuming and while we would like to help we are unable to follow up geneology queries unless the individuals concerned were high profile personalities of general local history interest. The Family History Societies, County Records Offices or Church records are lines of research for family history queries (see links below).

A source for obtaining copies of birth, marriage and death certificates going back to the latter half of the 19th century is available online at www.bmd-certificates.co.uk also please note this is a commercial site and there is a charge for each certificate obtained.

Debbie Byrne has had several years experience of researching this subject and gives this advice:
www.ancestry.co.uk a brilliant site through which you can access all the England and Wales censuses from 1841-1901, the Scottish censuses of 1841 & 1851,and all the civil registrations of birth death and marriages in England and Wales from 1837 to the 1900s. It is a pay per view site but they do offer a 14 day free trial during which you get unlimited access to the records. There are various payment options (I currently pay about £10 per month for unlimited access). Very easy to use. and I've found it invaluable.

www.1837online.com Again this is a pay per view site which gives access to all the civil registrations in England and Wales from 1837 to the 1900s and the 1861 & 1891 England and Wales Censuses. It is not so easy to use as ancestry.co.uk and it is easier to waste money looking at the wrong details. It is, however, the site you must use to order birth marriage and death certificates which are often vital to identify the parents of ancestors and so get back another generation. This site also has a lot of military records including births and marriages of forces serving overseas dating back to the 1800s.

www.familysearch.com Another good site and this time it's free! It gives access to the International Geneaological Index compiled from parish records around the world. The details go back, in some cases, to the 1500s and up to about 1840 and show christening dates with the names of parents and marriage dates with the names of spouses. There is also free access to the 1881 England and Wales census

Other sites such as GENUKI which give details of the area of interest and links to other sites such as family history societies. The sites above, though, are great for getting the basics of who lived when and where. The only problem wiith family history is that not everyone got married or had their children christened and it wasn't compulsory to register births, deaths and marriages until 1870. However, the later generations can usually be found on the censuses.

The RootsChat site
Another site very useful for exchanging research into past family or friends is www.rootschat.com
This includes some correspondence about the old Icewell Hill Newmarket complex at http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=317330.new;topicseen Webmaster

Suffolk County Records Office at Bury St. Edmunds is a good source of information covering the west of the county, including Newmarket. For instance they have microfiche copies of the pages of The Newmarket Journal, vey useful for tracing local events from the past. Go to their site select here

RECENT EVENTS

Keith Paterson, who lives in Norfolk Avenue Newmarket is the joint winner of the Internet Champions competition staged by AgeUk.
The award was presented in London on January 30th 2012 by June Whitfield after he and wife Pat had enjoyed a three day all expenses stay as one of the four competition finalists.
Despite being profoundly deaf Keith (aged 80) has done a tremendous job over the years with his Silverhairs website, which contains a mine of information on a wide range of subjects of particular use to the elderly.
A thoroughly deserved win.

December 20th 2011. The Christmas Wine & Cheese evening when members were well entertained by The Link Choir.

For the November 15th 2011 evening meeting NLHS webmaster Rod Vincent gave a well illustrated talk on 'A Century of Motoring'.
He is seen here with wife Audrey and Society Chairman Eric Dunning.

October 18th 2011. At the Society's monthly meeting Gill Shapland from the Cambridgeshire County Archives gave a presentation on the Tharp family of Jamaica and Chippenham.
John Tharp originally aquired land in Jamaica in the late 17th c as a reward for loyal service in Cromwell's army. There he built up successful sugar plantations, mostly with the use of slave labour, and made a large fortune by exporting sugar to Britain where there was a growing demand. He returned to Britain and bought Chippenham Park to satisfy his desire to beome an English gentleman farmer, while his descendants carried on working the very profitable Jamaican sugar plantations.
He became the Lord of the Manor of Chippenham where he spent much on enlarging and improving Chippenham Hall and building cottages for his estate workers; at one time he employed most of the working population of Chippenham. The Tharp family continued to be associated with Chippenham into the present century.

September 21st 2011.The Society's Annual Art Exhibition staged at The Rutland Arms Hotel for pictures select here

The November 5th 2011 edition of the East Anglian Daily Times, featured a centre spread about NLHS and our book The Bombing of Newmarket.

September 16th 2011. The official reopening of the town's King Edward VII Memorial Hall took place. The old hall was built in 1914 on land donated by Sir Ernest Cassel in memory of his friend, the late King. It withstood the 1941 bombing and served as the town's Post Office during the war, after the original one was destroyed.
Looking at the frontage from outside, not much seems to have altered as most of the well known features have been retained but inside much has improved. A large extension at the rear includes a new and enlarged Council Chamber on the upper floor. There is also a second meeting room, a modern office for the Town Clerk and the much better facilities include a lift for the handicapped.
Storage space for some our Society's archive material has been provided by three large cupboards in the upper floor meeting room and this will continue to be available for public access on Monday mornings.
The interior of the hall has been completely redecorated and now has a very attractive and modern appearance. It will continue as a meeting place for various activities and is now a facility of which Newmarket can be rightly proud. Well done to the Town Council for having the foresight and the will to carry this project through to conclusion.

The King Edward VII Memorial Hall after the official reopening ceremony on 16th September 2011

A view of The Avenue from an upper floor window

July 5th, 6th and 7th. Channel 4's Time Team visited Newmarket to carry out an exploratory dig in the old Palace House Stables Yard. The aim was to expose the foundations of the original old stables, thought to be the oldest racing stables in the world, and used by the King's horses. At the latest these date to Charles II's association with Newmarket, and the time of William Tregonwell Frampton, 'The Keeper of the King's Running Horses' (see 'Past Personalities' on this website).
The work was greatly helped by a 1740's plan of Palace House and the Stables that was obtained by the team, which gave them good guidance on where to carry out the excavations.
It is important that this work is carried out now as the Stables are due to be the new home of Newmarket's National Racing Museum, when it moves from its present site next to the Jockey Club.
The TV presentation is due to be screened next April.

The scene of activity as the Time Team carefully sift through the soil exposing the original building work

Part of the old foundations.

Fragments of old glass bottles brought to light, thought to be of 19th century origin.

Newmarket on Google Earth. The wonderful images of the world taken from satellite available on Google Earth have a particular interest to old Newmarket railway enthusiasts.
Zoom in on Newmarket to a degree that shows detail of streets, then track along the Bury Road leading NE from the centre of the town to the point where the railway line to Ely emerges from the tunnel under the Heath. Here you will see an orange spot. Click on the spot, which is then seen to be the old Warren Hill Station and that will bring up a page with links that lead to information and pictures of this and the other two Newmarket stations. One or two of the pictures have been supplied by our friend and collector of old Newmarket postcards, Roger Newman.

THE CRAVEN CLUB & THE CARLTON HOTEL - memories of Newmarket's stylish past!
A query from Alan Tomlin (see Correspondence pages Jan. 22nd 2008) sparked an investigation in the history of the Craven Club and we quote from the book 'Newmarket - a photographic history of your town' published in 2001 and edited by Joan Shaw who is a member of our Society.

"The prestigious Craven Club had rooms in the Carlton Hotel Building. Fred Astaire, who had a horse in training with Jack Leach, was a member of this club in the 1920s and came here when he was performing at The Palace Theatre London."

The Carlton, formerly the Carlton Hotel, was the impressive tall building on the north west side of the High Street, demolished in 1977 to make way for the Rookery Shopping Development. It had a ballroom "used for many and varied dances, from local hops to the hunt balls. The Winter Garden had a fountain in it that came from a natural spring. When the modern Boots was built here it was reported at the time that tons of concrete were used to suppress the spring.
During the war, the American Red Cross used part of it for a club for the American forces stationed in the area."
Dances were held there in the 1940s and many are the tales of the sometimes wild parties, especially during wartime. Many people consider it a great shame that this rather magnificent building with its ornate frontage, domed cupola and first floor balcony overlooking the High Street was demolished and r eplaced by the relatively drab buildings now there. We have a number of photographs showing The Carlton as it used to be.
Getting back to the Craven Club, it moved from the Carlton to Primrose House. This is the large house once owned by Lord Rosebery and now occupied by Cartwrights the electricians and Kitchens & Things. T he rather grand entrance door is still there and at the time of writing a few of the original internal architectural details still exist. We have pictures in our archives.

Pot Lids
As well as often being minature works of art, Pot Lids can give an interesting insight into local history. A new book (August 2008) has just been published giving pictures and details of 215 East Anglian pot lids, several of them advertising Newmarket chemists. For details visit the website select here.

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