Owlstone Croft history

The history of Owlstone Croft is part of the history of Paradise. F.A.Reeve wrote:

Today, the name Paradise designates the small island beside the nature reserve adjoining Owlstone Croft, but formerly it embraced the whole area up to the Lammas Land. There were once tennis courts known as the Paradise Courts on the University Hockey Ground.

[This hockey ground, located at the junction of Barton Road and Grantchester Street, has since been developed for housing].

References to Paradise go back a long way. The earliest mention of bathing in Cambridge records that in 1567 the son of Walter Haddon, while at King's College, was drowned "while washing himself in a Place in the river Cham called Paradise", and William Stukeley, the eighteenth century antiquary, when at Corpus College in 1704 wrote:

"I used to frequent, among other lads, the river in Sheep's Green, and learnt to swim in Freshman's and Soph's Pools, as they are called, and sometimes in Paradise, reckoning it a Beneficial Exercise".

And it was here, in 1811, that Byron's brilliant friend Matthews became entangled in weeds and was drowned. ....

The larger area now called Owlstone Croft was formerly called Paradise Garden. In 1740 it was taken over by Mr Rowe, who had introduced into Cornwall a system of forcing early vegetables for the London market, and here he produced them in a scientific way. His son Richard became associated with a Dutch bulb grower, outstripped all competitors in the production of beautiful flowers, and invented the hyacinth glass for growing bulbs in water only.

In the Grantchester Parish Enclosure Award 1802, the site now known as Owlstone Croft is shown as plot 96, and listed as a Garden of 2 acres 0 roods 38 poles (2.24 acres, slightly smaller than the present site), owned by Mary Harrison, "in the Occupation of R^d Row". Of the roads, only those now known as Grantchester Street (extending to Paradise Island) and Grantchester Meadows are shown, together with a branch from Grantchester Street to the site now known as Owlstone Croft. This branch survives today as a track for part of its length, connecting to the south end of Owlstone Road, which did not then exist. The branch road connecting Grantchester Street to Owlstone Croft is described in the Award as:

"One other Private Carriage and Drift Road of the like breadth of twenty Feet leading from and out of the last described Private Road [Grantchester Street] and extending in a North and North West direction through and over an Allotment [now part of Paradise Nature Reserve] hereinafter awarded to the said Master Fellows and Scholars of Benet College [Corpus Christi] into the said Garden Ground [Owlstone Croft] belonging to Mary Harrison now in the Tenure of Richard Rowe ... "

The directions "North and North West" appear to be errors (consistent with the equally erroneous earlier description of Grantchester Street as extending Eastward!), but the existence of two directions is accounted for by the turn in the road in front of the present cottage, before heading towards the Garden site proper.

The site was sold by auction on May 27th 1879, and the accompanying site plan is titled:

Plan of an Estate at Grantchester, Cambs, known as "Paradise".

The site is still shown as 2 acres 0 roods 38 poles. There is a house on the site of the later house, but smaller, and various other outbuildings. F.A. Reeve continues:

When the estate was bought in 1879 by Major R. Calvert, Chief Constable of the County Police, the grounds were described as "not to be surpassed in the Neighbourhood for Growth and Beauty" and they had "upwards of 355 square yards of Brick Walls all clothed with choice Fruit Trees". The house was rebuilt, with cottages for a coach