Workbench

with old photographs but then noticed a Co-op Funerals office which had clearly, in a previous existence, been a pub. It was readily identifiable as the former Royal Standard, which stood across the tramway from H. Brown’s shop, on the opposite side of the canal. I could now identify precisely where I was standing, and visualise a ‘J70’ plodding down under the big trees with a long rake of empty vans, to cross over onto the far bank of the canal and continue along Elm High Road. It also meant that a modern yellow brick residential property on the far side of the cross-roads stands on the site of Brown’s shop. I was disappointed, as I had clearly ‘struck out’ on the first of my quests. Nevertheless, I went across to look at the new building because it appeared to occupy precisely the ‘footprint’ of the original shop. A surprise awaited me when I reached the front of the building. It had obviously been a shop but the shopfront had been rebuilt and it is now a residence. However, clearly visible on the brickwork above the new front is the outline of the words ‘H. BROWN GROCER’, though the actual letters have been removed. What happened to H. Brown’s original shop and why it got rebuilt from the ground up, I’ve no idea. However, the present building does appear in a John Huntley archive movie shot during the last years of the tramway (narrated by Fyffe Robertson), so the existing building is contemporary with the diesel era on the tramway – the early 1960s. You’ll find it on Youtube at: https://youtu.be/_0z938wffgy Leaving H. Brown’s behind me, I walked away from town on the left side of Elm High Road. There is no doubting this part of the tramway route as the ‘pavement’ here is unusually wide, sometimes a simple grass verge, sometimes gravel, or tarred. In due course, the next landmark is reached as the road turns quite sharply to the left and the broad walkway becomes a narrow pavement. Here the tramway crossed to the opposite side of the road by taking a much gentler left-hand curve than the highway. Known on the tramway as the Duke of Wellington crossing, the pub after which it is named has now gone. On the right, close to this bend, is the next obvious landmark and again, it is a pub, the former Blacksmith’s Arms, now the China Rose restaurant. The broad grass verge now resumes on the right of the highway, past some large houses, as it heads towards the next section of the tramway that is familiar in photographs. In Elm High Road, I was particularly looking for a Primitive Methodist chapel. The chapel, in use as a vehicle repair workshop, appears in several views of the tramway. I particularly wanted to model the chapel because it stood at right-angles to the road, with its roofline running at 90º to the rooflines of the adjacent houses. Modelling in semirelief, this would make the background to a model more interesting. My 1990s photographs show that the chapel was still Above: Elm High Road, looking back towards H.B. Brown’s shop in the centre distance. The broad pavement gives away the original course of the tramway.

Left: This wisteria-covered property was once part of the former brewery and mill, damaged by fire in 1911 and rebuilt as a house. The Chrysler is standing on the trackbed of the tramway, (see p92 of the Oakwood book – see Further Reading). Newcommon Bridge in Wisbech. The tramway emerged from the trees, swung left over the canal, close to where the traffic island now is, then swung right to pass in front of H.B. Brown’s grocer’s shop, close to where I took this picture from.