The soon-to-be-dissolved county council signed a 250 year lease with a London-based property group and placed with a subsidiary firm called Cambridge Apartment Hotels Ltd
You can read the press release here, and the report from BBC Cambridgeshire here. It will take them another 18 months to negotiate the details, and then they have the fun and games of the planning process.
“With the exception of 42 Castle Street, the existing buildings are contained within the northern part of the property. The southern part of the property is open space and car parking. The most southerly part of the property contains the Scheduled Monument (SM) known as Castle Mound. A second Scheduled Monument known as Civil War Earthworks, bounds the property to the east. The Old Police Station and 42 Castle Street are Grade II listed buildings”
Above – from the original sales brochure
This brings to an end the sorry saga of the site of the old castle, part of the area where Cambridge was first settled.
It’s a strange ending to a story that began when the once mighty Cambridgeshire Conservatives decided they didn’t like traveling into Cambridge for their council meetings, so decided to move the county council’s HQ to a building that was never fit for purpose – for a start they cannot fit all of their councillors comfortably into the New Shire Hall Chamber in Alconbury. Which also has no decent public transport from Cambridge, its largest settlement either.
When the Conservatives made the decision to move out of Cambridge, they were in control of the county council. Despite opposition from Labour and the Liberal Democrats, the move was voted through by the Conservatives and the new building was approaching completion by the time the Tories were manoeuvred out of control of the council in 2021. Hence the incoming joint administration had little choice but to continue disposal negotiations. Fast forward to 2025 and the Conservatives find themselves with a miserable ten county councillors, sharing that figure with TeamNigel’s happy band – the latter also enabling the Liberal Democrats to overtake the Tories and ultimately take control of the council.
Above – who got elected to where in Cambridgeshire last month (May 2025)
“So…what happens now?”
It’s not the end of the world. It remains to be seen what the new owners want to do with the additional spaces on the site – mindful of the restrictions and historical significance of it.
“They’re a London-based property firm. They’ll hire London-based consultants and try and build some bland ugly boxes at minimal cost so they can ‘maximise the financial return on the site’ and stick two fingers up at the rest of the city as they rinse the corporate accounts of those paid to stay in the new aparthotels – which don’t have to pay nearly as much in taxes or have as many regulations as small independent hoteliers”
Or there’s that.
Back in the late 2010s I made a different pitch for the future use of the site
“A hotel at Shire Hall? Only if we can rebuild the castle and courthouse as a city museum as well”
Above – August 2017 from my old blog
Above – from the Museum of Cambridge’s photo archive – the significance of this photograph is that it was one of the images that got me interested in local history and the story of my home town
It was one of several images of buildings in the city centre that was demolished in the wrecking spree of the post-war years.
“I still think It’s a tragedy that the statues from the old court house were not saved – representing Justice, Liberty, Power and Truth. I’d love to see them back up there.”
Above – The past and future of (old) Shire Hall on Castle Hill in Lost Cambridge, 03 Feb 2024
Note that there were two sets of abandoned plans for the courts – both mentioned in my August 2017 blogpost, and a more detailed one of the latter scheme from the 1960s (which proposed a tall tower) featured as more old newspapers became accessible.
Building an extension to the Museum of Cambridge
I made the case for this back in 2018 and have been ignored ever since. Which is normal.
Prior to the current Shire Hall building (made out of bricks of the old county gaol) being built in the early 1930s, Castle Hill looked something like the below.
Above – Castle Hill Circa 1920s from Britain From Above, with St Giles in the foreground
The old courthouse is obscured by the angle, but you can sort of make out the two court houses of the old Assizes Court to the left of the photo.
Above – from the Cambridgeshire Collection’s newspaper microfiche archive, we really should have saved Justice, Liberty, Power and Truth.
But instead the county council rebuffed the pleas from the city council and the building got turned into a surface car park.
Could we campaign to get the developers/leaseholder to rebuild part of the Assizes Court including statues (or an improved version of it that doesn’t look like a spreadsheet) for an expanded Museum of Cambridge and art gallery?
We could – but someone else is going to have to lead it. If you think Cambridgeshire County Council should show some leadership and take a lead on this, drop a quick email to your county councillor via https://www.writetothem.com/
Because if you don’t ask, you don’t get!
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The Cambridge Town Owl 