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In 1971, Cambridge solicitor Peter Soar, a keen amateur photographer, set about recording the last days of that part of Cambridge city centre destined to be demolished to make way for major redevelopment.
Set One | Set Two | Set Three
He also photographed the area during reconstruction and after most of it was completed. The resulting photographs are published here for the first time. The area included the old Lion Yard, part of a coaching inn after which the new development was to be named, as well as one entire side of Petty Cury, a street of small shops mentioned by Samuel Pepys in 1660. Much of what is shown here has now been demolished to make way for the Grand Arcade redevelopment, the latest 'improvement' to the city landscape.
I had first met Peter in the early 1970s, in his professional capacity as a local solicitor (now retired), but I had no idea then that he pursued photography so avidly in his spare time. It was only in the early 1980s, when he agreed to assist in setting up the Cambridge Darkroom, that I learned of his interest in the subject.
This year, more than twenty-five years later, I met up with him again whilst carrying out research into Edwin Smith. In conversation, he mentioned that he had exhibited some of his own photographs alongside those of Edwin in Cambridge in 1970, as part of a Cambridge Civic Society exhibition in the small gallery at Joshua Taylor's department store. The images reproduced here are the complete set made at the time, from which those exhibited were drawn.
The photographs were mostly taken as he travelled to work in Cambridge in the early morning. The streets are empty of people and cars for the most part, the old buildings already sadly neglected and derelict after suffering many years of planning blight. They show some of the small alleyways and back streets that formed part of the medieval hub of Cambridge as well as the shops, offices and restaurants that made this part of the City such a fascinating place. Many locations are shown that I well remember from my first years in Cambridge around that time.
Viewing the collection now is like stepping back in time - especially for anyone who remembers this area. The cars and fashions seem so dated, and not at all how I remember those days! Peter's photographs are more often than not carefully composed and executed, not just work-in-progress documents - although they partly fulfil that role as well. Amongst them are, I think, some quite remarkable photographs that go beyond ordinary documentation, similar to the way that many of Atget's photographs of Paris captured something more than just the architecture that he confronted with his camera.
There are over 180 photographs altogether, with few duplicates, and Peter has given me access to the original negatives so that they may be collected here for the first time. All were taken either with a Hasselblad or a Rolleiflex and the resulting 120 film negatives have been scanned for inclusion here. Some of the sets contain other photographs taken around Cambridge on the same roll as the city centre views, but I have left these in the sets. I have divided the photographs roughly into three sets: Before, During and After redevelopment. They form excellent companions to my own study of The Kite Area of Cambridge, made some ten years later with far less dedication and thoroughness I regret to say.
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