Cambridge’s most stately home

1__Abbey House

Cambridge’s most stately home

Few people travelling along the noisy and very unlovely Newmarket Road out of Cambridge realise that just over 20 yards down an unassuming side street stands a veritable stately home that is the oldest continuously inhabited house in the city.

Abbey House was built on land that belonged to Barnwell Priory, which was founded in 1092, although it seems to have had no connection with it. There are a few visible reminders of Barnwell Priory: the wall around the garden was partially built from stones that belonged to the Priory, and in the garden (just visible through the gates from the road) are two rustic arches. The house dates from around 1580, although it was extended in 1678, and was owned by a succession of Cambridge worthies, including ‘Polite’ Tommy Panton, Lady Gwydir and Joseph Sturton, whose names live on in the area.

In 1945 the property, by now very dilapidated, was bought by Lord Fairhaven of Anglesey Abbey, who gave it to the Cambridge and County Folk Museum. Although repairs were carried out on it, none of their plans ever came to anything (high winds caused it to creak alarmingly, most likely giving rise to the tales of hauntings). They passed it on to the city council who rented it out, its last tenants being Professor Peter Danckwerts, a brilliant international scientist, who had been a wartime bomb disposal officer, and his wife. On their deaths the council put the house up for sale; it was acquired by the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, and is now occupied by a residential spiritual community. For some time they opened the house one day a year for guided tours, but sadly this no longer happens, so visitors can only gaze across the garden and imagine the history hidden behind the walls. And now only the small handful of residents who live there can say if the ghostly nun, disembodied head or spectral animals still haunt the house.

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Address Abbey Road, CB5 8HQ | Getting there Citi 3 to Newmarket Road / Ditton Walk or buses 10, 10A, 11, 12 or 17 to Elizabeth Way | Hours Viewable from the outside only | Tip Nearby, in Beche Road, are the remains of Barnwell Priory. Only the old storehouse, called the Cellarer’s Chequer, survives; it can be viewed from the outside.