This photograph was taken in about 1905. The iron railings you can see in front of the houses in the front of the picture were removed during WWII as part of the scrap metal collection scheme to provide metal for munitions and aircraft production. If you look at garden walls, you can sometimes see where metal railings have been cut off from the wall. Further along on the left with the large window, you can see the General Stores which was run by the Purkis family until it closed in 1921. The three houses further along on the left became known as Abercorn Villas.

On the right is the home of Charles Cooper who was a blacksmith. Just visible on the right hand side of the picture is the edge of the awning that was the entrance to his forge. In 1922 Charles Cooper inherited his father’s premises and moved the forge further up the Radwinter road.

The county boundary used to run up the middle of this road until the junction with Kates Lane. So in 1905 if you lived on the left you lived in Cambridgeshire, but those on the right were in Essex.