Guide price £105,000; leasehold.
Ground floor flat in the Windmill Grange over-55s development, with kitchen, sitting/dining room, bathroom, double bedroom.
Author: chris
Studio flat for sale in Pine Court
Guide price £160,000, leasehold.
Second floor studio flat. Entrance hall, living/dining room, kitchen, bathroom.
4 bedroom detached house to rent in Brook Close
Available 20/08/2021 for £2,000pcm, unfurnished.
Downstairs: Entrance hall, WC, Living room, kitchen. dining room.
Upstairs: Master bedroom with en-suite shower room, three further bedrooms, family bathroom.
Extensions, garage conversion, boundary wall and associated works at 25 The Coppice
Single storey front and side infill extension, conversion of garage to habitable space, erection of boundary wall with timber fencing to front, and associated external works at High Trees 25 The Coppice Impington CB24 9PP
Playing field saved for the community
Fears have been allayed that the playing field in New School Road – previously used by the former Infants School – could be used as development land now that the school has moved.
Land owners Cambridgeshire County Council have granted a ‘tenancy at will’ to the Parish Council, which has no plans to develop the site, but will open it to the whole community, monitor its use and listen to any good ideas that could further enhance its value to local residents.
Although a ‘tenancy at will’ allows the Parish Council to occupy the land indefinitely, it is only a short-term measure and either party could end the arrangement by giving immediate notice at any time. However, the intention of both parties is that that this temporary arrangement will be turned into a long-term lease of the land. A 7-year lease is currently on offer, which would protect the land from development during this period.
Parish Council Chair Denis Payne explained: “The tenancy is good news because it makes a little more green open space available to the community. The field is a Protected Village Amenity Area in the South Cambs Local Plan, and also a Local Green Space in the Histon & Impington Neighbourhood Plan. Anything that the Parish Council does with the land will reflect these designations.”
Future use
For the time being the field – which will open to the public from Friday 30th July – will simply remain as a field. It is likely to be open for use from 8am until dusk each day and will be subject to a few common sense rules, including ball games being allowed. The rights of existing users will be protected, including the neighbouring Early Years centre, which is a condition of the tenancy.
Among the ideas for the land are a Pump Track – which has long been the vision of some in the community. A post on Facebook commented that the original gift of the land was for the benefit of children’s exercise and neighbours are used to it being used for children’s recreation. “It already has some mature trees. I can imagine it with hedging and additional planting to make it interesting, it would be a great, central use of the space, and it’s big enough with some careful design”.
Graffiti Granny has it all sewn up
With a little help from her friend Kilo, Histon & Impington’s Graffiti Granny, Moira Neal, has her entry for this year’s Festival of Quilts all sewn up. Amanda Borrill asked her about how it all began and the challenges she has faced getting to the finish line.
Never has the saying ‘you are never too old to try something new’ been truer than in the case of Moira Neal whose visit to an event organised by local graffiti artist Kilo (aka William Pengelly), back in the summer of 2017, would introduce her to a whole new art form and assign her with the tag ‘Graffiti Granny’.
As part of a public art collaboration between our Parish and County councils, aimed at encouraging engagement with the youth of our villages, artist Kilo had arranged for a television film crew to watch as they set about transforming a concrete underpass along the guided busway into a colourful wall of graffiti art.
The Bridge project in action July 2017. Where Moira first met Kilo. Photo Aga Cahn. Moira takes up the story: “My meeting Kilo, at the Graffiti Dabble day in 2017, inspired me immensely. I went home and bought £100 worth of spray paints and had fun creating my own wall at home. I was tagged the ‘graffiti granny’ on our local community Facebook page, with people finding it highly amusing to see a woman of my more advanced years having a go at this hip young art form.
Left to right, Kilo, Penelope Keith and Moira during filming of Village of the Year. Photo Moira’s own. “Then, when our village featured in Channel 4’s Village of the Year with Penelope Keith, my involvement with the graffiti wall was picked up by the producers and I was invited for an interview. Our village made it all the way to the semi-finals and it was an incredible achievement to get that far.
Original sheet sprayed with Kilo’s tag. Photo Moira Neal. “Having loved the experience so much, I commissioned Kilo to spray an old white sheet for me and, this year, I finally got round to making it into a quilt which will be entered into an exhibition at The Festival of Quilts. Kilo sprayed his tag and some fluorescent pink paint around it. I love to re-use and up-cycle and the entire quilt is made from old cotton sheeting which has been either painted or dyed in lovely bright colours.
“I painted the sky, wall and pavement and then had fun adding the appliqué and free machine embroidery to it, stitched at speed with black thread to really make the colours pop. I added the graffiti granny with her purple hair in a bun, spraying flowers on the wall. Beside her is a basket containing her spray paints and mobile phone and on her other side, her flask of earl grey tea.
Graffiti Granny’s basket with her spray paints. Photo Moira Neal. 
Graffiti Granny adorned with purple bun. Photo Moira Neal. 
Discarded chips and cigarette butts. Photo Moira Neal. “In her bag, which has been stitched on separately, is a letter with the story of the quilt and what happened while I was making it. All my quilts are journal quilts and document my life.
“The pavement is littered with cigarette butts and chewing gum all made using pelmet Vilene and free machine stitch. There is a bag of discarded chips and a tomato sauce sachet stitched into it. On the right is a dog peeing against the water and in the foreground there are other things to find! (A dog poo and slug, ladybirds, worms and a snail!)”
Dog and wall. Photo Moira Neal. While working on this quilt for the competition, Moira unfortunately became acutely ill and was diagnosed with a devastating condition called Polymyalgia Rhematica. This condition causes intense pain and weakness in the shoulders and rendered Moira unable to finish the quilting.
Moira continued: “As it had been entered in the ‘two person’ category, the only person who could help me was Kilo, although my daughter Claire also kindly offered her help. A quick call to Kilo and, to my amazement, he agreed to come and help me free machine the graffiti areas of the quilt. I had left them until the end as was unsure how to quilt them without imposing my design on his original work. After all, Kilo is the true graffiti artist… I was just there to have fun.
“In the end, I decided echo quilting would work well. Kilo was brilliant! As an artist, he took to the free machining really quickly and came over for two afternoons to finish the quilt for me. I took some time lapse film of him at work. He is a natural”
Moira and Kilo’s finished quilt is on exhibition in the Two Person category at the Festival of Quilts at the NEC from 29th July until 1st August.
Greetings cards of the whole design as well as three close ups are currently awaited from the printers. Moira will post news when available on local social media or, alternatively, you can email her personally at moira@moiraneal.com
HI HUB – come and join us!
The editorial team is taking a short break over the summer but we’ll be back in September and we’d love you to join us.
With August almost upon us, accompanied by the traditional English rain clouds, the HI HUB editorial team are taking a short break to recharge their batteries and enjoy their staycations.
Keep an eye on your weekly newsletter for jobs, events, property and planning applications though as these will continue to run through the summer, with news and features returning on 2nd September.
When we come back, would you like to join us?
To boost HI HUB’s content from September, we’re looking to expand our editorial team. Could you be interested? There are two opportunities.
You may have spotted among the job listings last week that HI HUB is looking for a trained Community Journalist on a freelance basis, to take a high profile role in writing and editing material for publication as HI HUB prepares to extend its output and reach. If you’re experienced at writing news and features for publication, it could be an opportunity for you to earn a small fee while using your skills for the benefit of your own community. We particularly welcome applications from people who know the village and would love to use their training to help connect people from their own neighbourhood.
Alternatively, you may have – even in the dim and distant past – had a secret desire to be a journalist, or simply to research and write articles for publication. We would love to hear from you. As a member of the volunteer contributor team (we’re all volunteers right now) you would simply work with more experienced writers and editors to create articles that keep local residents in the know about what’s going on, and the opportunities available to them. Don’t worry if you’re not an experienced writer – all we need is a desire to find out what’s happening and the enthusiasm to have a go. Others are available to help with style, grammar and everything techie – if you need them.
Get involved
HI HUB has exciting plans for the future and we’d love you to be part of them. We’ll hold a get-together for the editorial team in September, and we’re trying to organise some training. It would be great if you could join us.
If you want to talk through anything about the volunteer or Community Journalist roles, just drop a line to news@hihub.info and we’ll get back to you.
Have a great summer and see you in September.
We’ll meet again, we know where… and hopefully when!
Belonging to a choir and singing together is an activity at the heart of village life, with many residents valuing the camaraderie of belonging or attending regular concerts. Eddy Moore reports on the impact of the pandemic on this vital source of pleasure for so many.
Covid 19 has brought to a standstill the usual activities of Histon & Impington’s local choirs, which have been unable to meet and rehearse normally since March 2020. As Lynne Purchase, of Choir 2000 told HI HUB: “The last time that the Choir ‘met’ in person was a rather melancholy evening returning scores to librarians at Histon Baptist Church.”
The Zoom year
Nevertheless, choir members were determined to keep things ticking over during the interminable weeks of lockdown and turned to Zoom. Sue Lee, Chair of the Impingtones, explained how they started to explore the use of technology: “We had our first Zoom choir session on 1st April 2020 and tentatively explored how this might work for us. Just seeing each other on screen and the infectious enthusiasm of our choir leader, Bridget Hardy, was uplifting and our weekly Zoom choir quickly became part of our ‘new normal’.”
Unlike online meetings the use of Zoom for a large choir is not at all straightforward. Lynne Purchase explained: “We knew at the outset that Zoom wouldn’t allow us to ‘sing together’ in real-time; we had to have everyone with microphone ‘off’ to avoid a complete cacophany. When singing in a choir it is not just your voice; you hear others around you in your section singing one part, you watch the conductor for tempo and direction; you hear other sections in the choir and the soloists and accompanist/orchestra.
“In the absence of that support, it’s a bit daunting to sing on your own from a sheet of music with no-one else around you, even in the privacy of your own home!”
The Impingtones had to overcome the same obstacles: “Taking part in a choir over Zoom isn’t without it’s challenges, not least because you are singing on your own; but most importantly, it enabled us to keep on singing. We knew how important our singing community is to our members and we desperately felt a need to be there for them and to stay connected. We’ve had loyal support from our members and this has meant that we’re still here and looking forward to the next chapter.”
Ten Sing Cambridge, a youth group offers a variety of creative and performing arts activities from singing and music, to dance and drama. They too moved to online meetings enabling their members to keep in touch.
One Impingtones member, Sarah Strickland, summed up the value of online connections: “I’ve been part of this lovely, local choir for over five years. For me, continuing via Zoom has maintained that sense of connection, so that we’re ready to pick up where we left off 18 months ago”.
Moving outdoors
Choir 2000 – social distancing, hats and scarves all essential! In a resourceful move, some choirs moved outside when the Covid restrictions permitted only outdoor singing.
The last live performance by Choir 2000 was a programme of festive music performed socially distanced on the Green in December. They were also able to sing together in the gardens of Histon Manor and were grateful for the support of Mrs Katherine Mann for allowing the choir to meet there.
The Impingtones – singing in tune with nature The Impingtones met up at the Histon & Impington Community Orchard in July: “What a joy it was to be able to sing together!”, said Sue Lee. “We must admit, the singing wasn’t great at first but we quickly got used to socially distanced singing and over a few weeks regained our confidence in the beautifully calm and inspiring space among the apple trees.”
Return to ‘normal’
As the months went by and parts of lockdown eased, hopes of returning to normal for choirs were dashed by guidance issued by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It was only after Step 4 on July 19th that restrictions were fully lifted.
Both Choir 2000 and The Impingtones will be restarting in the autumn. Sue is delighted The Impingtones will be moving to a new venue from September, singing in the hall at the new Park Primary School on Wednesday evenings. “The school has agreed to us hiring this lovely space and the plan is to return to in-person singing, with much work going on in the background by a committed and enthusiastic committee to ensure we can be as Covid safe as possible. We are determined to make it happen.”
Choir 2000 are also proceeding cautiously and will restart rehearsals at Histon Baptist Church in October. Lynne Purchase explained: “These will probably be somewhat different to how rehearsals were previously; we now, for instance, have to factor in new processes such as ‘ventilation breaks’ into our schedule for each evening.
“Until October, we continue to work on our repertoire with rehearsals held outside, taking advantage of the good weather and long summer evenings. It’s so good to see familiar faces and be able to raise our voices together again, at last. We hope that we will be able to organise a December concert performance of Vivaldi’s ‘Gloria’ together with some of our lockdown repertoire and some carols. A cheerful programme after so many months away.”
Volunteer Flu Vaccination Marshals
The Firs House Surgery are looking for volunteer marshals to help with the coming autumn flu vaccination programme. They are planning for 5 weekend days in September/October and are looking for volunteers to do a morning (8am to 12.30pm) or afternoon (1.30-4.30pm) shift.
If you are interested in helping please email jo@standrewshiston.org, who is coordinating the volunteers for the Firs for this programme.
