No 35: January 2013
Published by Rothay House, Mayfield Road, Eastrea.
Eastrea Village News SEVERAL READERS commented on the report in Eastrea News No. 34 that an order of Cambridgeshire County Council had caused our new excavation on the main road to be refilled. Here’s what happened. In November 2012, the main sewer had been located. Its base lies about 4 m (some 13 ft) below the road surface. When the hole had been dug, rain caused the gravelly subsoil to flood and it became clear that the work might drag on into the beginning of December. The County Council said work must stop, so the entire hole had to be completely refilled! Next week it should be dug out again. Meanwhile, the site of the deep hole is marked by a smooth asphalt infill (shown in the picture below).
THE EXCAVATION THAT CAME AND WENT
WIDELY TRAVELLED LOCAL RESIDENT Stuart Goyns is a connoisseur of old guide-books. ‘They allow you to discover places you’d never have the chance to visit,’ he explains. Here is a book that turns the tables, by showing us how tourists used to look at Eastrea. This Penguin Guide to the Isle of Ely (left) was published in 1948 and reported that Eastrea was a village with many pretty thatched houses. Tourists were recommended to make a detour to view them. Times have radically changed: now, only five of those original houses have survived.