Historyworks

Michael Rosen says that he wondered about how to tackle writing a history poem about Stourbridge Fair and came up with the idea of a kind of ghost monologue. So this new poem, commissioned by Helen Weinstein at HistoryWorks for 'Creating My Cambridge' is called "Newton, Apple Pie, Prisms or Prisons?" and starts with a meeting with a stranger, and the stranger starts talking...

Taster of a documentary feature format by Historyworks about The Leper Chapel in Cambridge which would be a metaphor for the outsider in society ( particularly the migrant and trading traveller) because the documentary will explore the stories of this plot over 800 years and will have a gripping sound texture to create a poetic exploration with Michael Rosen's responses and will be layered up with...

Hey Mr Miller! What a swing that you bring to the band! x2 With your trombone and your saxophone, We can hear you all through the land. x 2 Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba da ba da ba da ba da ba ba ba da ba doo wah! x2

Poem devised collaboratively with Helen Weinstein who briefed Michael Rosen about the area and the local history & you can find the resources for parents and teachers about Coldham's Common, Coprolite mining and more on our website http://www.creatingmycambridge.com/songs-creative/resources/local-history-topics MICHAEL ROSEN'S COLDHAM'S COMMON POEM The years pass and the grass grows, the grass...

Pterosaur poo, Pterosaur poo. Thousands found it. Didn’t know what to do! Pterosaur poo, Pterosaur poo, Made of stone. Too hard to chew. Ptesosaur poo, Pterosaur poo. Near to where, the cows go moo. Pterosaur poo. Pterosaur poo. Now it’s ancient. Once it was new. Pterosaur poo. Pterosaur poo. Thousands came. Did they queue? Pterosaur poo. Pterosaur poo. In a poem by you know who! By Michael Rosen

For more details visit http://www.creatingmycambridge.com/trails/great-st-marys-cambridge-market-area/ The Cambridge Market square is what it is today as a result of the Great Fire. This took place on the night of Saturday 15th September 1849, when a blaze broke out at half past midnight at a clothier’s shop full of textiles. In those times, there were wooden houses and workshops erected like a sh...

For more details visit http://www.creatingmycambridge.com/trails/great-st-marys-cambridge-market-area/ Although you will see many women celebrating their graduations alongside their male classmates nowadays, this wasn’t always the case. Women’s colleges were founded in the mid-1800s, but despite doing all of the hard work and exams, women weren’t full members of the University and so were not awar...

For more details visit http://www.creatingmycambridge.com/trails/great-st-marys-cambridge-market-area/ QUEEN ELIZABETH I VISITS GREAT ST MARY’S In the summer of 1564, Queen Elizabeth I came to Cambridge, her only visit to the university city throughout her long reign. The students and professors of the Tudor University as well as residents of the town began preparing frantically for her arrival: t...

For more details visit http://www.creatingmycambridge.com/trails/great-st-marys-cambridge-market-area/ In Tudor times, religion was a matter of life and death. Martin Bucer was a celebrated Protestant theologian. While the Protestant boy-king Edward VI ruled England, Martin Bucer became Professor of Theology at Cambridge. When Martin died, 3,000 people crammed into Great St Mary’s for his funeral...

For more details visit http://www.creatingmycambridge.com/trails/great-st-marys-cambridge-market-area/ There have been bells at Great St Mary’s from at least 1303 and they rang to call everyone to Church services; to open the town Corn market; to toll for births, marriages and deaths; and to announce the start of University meetings and lectures. They rang out for great events like royal coronatio...

For more details visit http://www.creatingmycambridge.com/trails/great-st-marys-cambridge-market-area/ Charles Darwin was a scientist who studied in Cambridge. He was supposed to train as a vicar, but he found beetle collecting much more interesting, and became a scientist instead. His radical theory of evolution by natural selection made us rethink our place in the world. Charles Darwin spread hi...

For more details visit http://www.creatingmycambridge.com/trails/great-st-marys-cambridge-market-area/ Christopher Cooke was one of Cambridge’s youngest war heroes. He was only 15 when he survived a disaster which proved that the deadly German U-boats had changed naval warfare forever. As a cadet at the Royal Naval College, Christopher was sent to sea on HMS Aboukir as soon as the First World War...

This history trail audio is narrated by the poet Michael Rosen, with script researched by Helen Weinstein and the team at Historyworks. This recording is part of a series of Cambridge history trails which have lyrics inspired by 'history beneath our feat' performed by local schoolchildren, with poems by the top poet Michael Rosen and songs by the funny team at CBBC's songwriters commissioned by Hi...

For more details visit http://www.creatingmycambridge.com/trails/from-abbey-meadows-to-market-square/ The Headly family was one of the major iron-founding families in Cambridge, and was casting iron in the town longer than anyone else. The Headly iron works foundry was located on Market Hill on the site that is currently being occupied by Marks & Spencer. By the 1840s, the foundry had passed t...

This history trail audio is narrated by the poet Michael Rosen, with script researched by Helen Weinstein and the team at Historyworks. This recording is part of a series of Cambridge history trails which have lyrics inspired by 'history beneath our feat' performed by local schoolchildren, with poems by the top poet Michael Rosen and songs by the funny team at CBBC's songwriters commissioned by Hi...

For more details visit http://www.creatingmycambridge.com/trails/from-abbey-meadows-to-market-square/ What many people don’t know is that Great St Mary’s is the official centre of Cambridge and has been so since 1725. Nationally, maps were printed as engravings and became popular in small pocket forms in the 1600s, with Ogilby’s “Road Maps of England and Wales” published in 1675 becoming the best...

For more details visit http://www.creatingmycambridge.com/trails/from-abbey-meadows-to-market-square/ Oliver Cromwell grew up in Huntingdon near Cambridge, and went to Sidney Sussex College, starting as a student just before his seventeenth birthday. He worked in and around Cambridge for the next 20 years, becoming MP and joined the Parliamentarian side during the English Civil War. When King Char...

For more details visit http://www.creatingmycambridge.com/trails/from-abbey-meadows-to-market-square/ Cambridge was once home to two of the most prominent campaigners against the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Olaudah Equiano (1745-1797), who was an African, campaigned alongside Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846), from Wisbech. They were both early activists, just as important as William Wilberforce. They de...