Chippenham Park, near Newmarket, has a rich history. The best stretches of wooded country in the Cambridgeshire landscape often turn out to be the remains of 18th-century parks surrounding surprisingly little-known country houses. Typical of these is Chippenham Park, which lies between Ely and Newmarket. The house, seen from the park, appears to be a late-19th-century red-brick. neo-Queen Anne country house, typical of those built round Newmarket for shooting and racing parties-indeed, the Prince of Wales and his brother the Duke of Cambridge stayed here for a shoot in 1896.

To a casual visitor, Chippenham might seem to be in a time warp. On the surface it seems little changed from the days when the village existed only to house workers on the estate. The lovely row of pink and yellow William and Mary cottages are still there on the High Street. Next to them is the beautiful Georgian building that used to be the village school. Opposite is the 11th Century Church of St Margaret, and at the junction of Palace Lane with the High Street in its own little shelter is the village pump.

Photograps of the Chippenham Girls Friendly Society in 1928. In the centre of a group of Tennis players is Mrs Tharp.

The photographs were taken from a cutting from the Newmarket Journal dated 16 January 1975 that had been kept by Fred Fuller. They had been lent to the Journal by Miss K Langley of 49 High Street, Chippenham who appears in the pictures.

Apart from the war years when my father was in the RAF I lived in Badlingham from 1937 to 1954.I attended the village school where the Head Mistress was Miss Bridgeman and infant teacher Mrs Smith. Both teachers lived in Soham and used to come to the school each morning in a Austin 7 saloon. When I was 11 years I went to Soham Grammar School. In the early years I used to cycle to Fordham to catch a bus to the Grammar School. My mother, after a considerable effort, was able persuade the authorities to arrange for the bus to come from Newmarket via Snailwell to Chippenham to pick up both Soham Grammar School boys and Ely High School girls at the village pump.