Meldreth Matters, September 2021

Farewell Meldreth During my first year at the Primary School in 1998 I walked around the village taking photographs of interesting details I could find, to encourage children to take a closer look at the place where they lived.

The display included the wooden scout badge on the old scout hut long since closed and converted into a home; an old hay cart which stood for years at the station end of Flambards Close; the old pump that stands just off the pavement in North End – all things that told a tale of their own and quietly documented the history of Meldreth.

Meldreth village itself has long proved to be a rich and enduring resource for children's learning in school. Our younger children in Key Stage 1 and Early Years have made weekly visits to the riverside and woods for some years now, using the natural environment as a springboard for scientific, humanities and imaginative work. Prior to Covid, groups of children could frequently be seen industriously pottering around on diverse and purposeful projects in Melwood and hopefully these will resume in the autumn term. One year, I ran a project with a class of seven year olds, where we set ourselves up as a conservation group ‘Wild at Heart’ with a mission to make the riverside and woods in Meldreth as perfect as possible for wildlife to thrive.

Steve and Sandra Webb of the River Mel Restoration Group talked to the children and led river dipping sessions, leaving the children with a deep love and respect for the biodiversity on our doorstep. Our annual Fun Run for Red Nose Day has for almost twenty years now, wound its way along the woodland trail to the old mill and back – a much loved institution that returned this year after a Covid enforced absence in 2020.

When studying Meldreth during wartime, it has been fascinating to look through the old school registers to discover how evacuee children from London swelled the numbers on the school roll during 1939 and 1940 and to re-enact our own ‘evacuation’ by dressing up in our 1940s clobber – complete with gasmasks – and parading from Meldreth station to spend a day in the village school – 1940s style – before being billeted with our evacuee ‘aunties and uncles’.

From time to time we have made visits to Adcock’s [Topcliffe] Mill in North End, kindly hosted by Kathryn Betts. It is truly spellbinding for children and adults alike to climb the rickety stairs to the upper floor of 5