If you’re thinking about buying a property in Cambridge, it’s important to get to know the local area. Although the same conveyancing laws apply across England, there are local quirks in every area and in this article we seek to shine a light on several interesting points that you may surprise you about the Cambridge market.
There is more than one waterway running through Cambridge
The river that gives its name to Cambridge is of course the Cam, although you may not know that the Old English name for the first settlement was in fact Grantabrycge (Bridge on the Granta), with Norman French pronunciation eventually shifting from Granta to Cam and the river then being back-named to match.
The River Cam is a large part of Cambridge life, supporting the thriving punting industry and serving the various Town and Gown boathouses along it, although the University’s Blue Boats actually practice further North on the River Great Ouse in Ely as it is wider and less busy and only use the Goldie boathouse in the city for gym work etc.
There is however a much smaller watercourse that was built in the 1600s to bring fresh water into the city from springs near Great Shelford and runs along the broad gutters of Trumpington Street – known as Hobson’s Conduit or otherwise as Hobson’s Brook. Thomas Hobson, who gave his name to the waterway after establishing a Trust to deal with its maintenance, is the same Cambridge entrepreneur connected to the phrase ‘Hobson’s choice’. Hobson was a stable owner who recognised that his best horses were overworked whilst his weaker horses was not selected. He therefore decided to operate a strict rotation system where a customer could simply rent the next horse in line, or not rent one at all – take it or leave it.
Ground rents in residential leases don’t have to be monetary
Long leases of residential properties, usually found when dealing with apartments or flats rather than houses, will usually specify a ‘ground rent’ – a sum payable each year from the tenant to the landlord to keep the lease in existence. In a short term tenancy, this might be thousands of pounds a year, but in a long term lease it could be several hundred pounds.
The issue of ground rents (amongst other things) in residential leases has been the focus of successive Governments but as things stand the concept of a ground rent still remains.
In some cases, the lease will specify payment of one peppercorn (if demanded), which is essentially the legal equivalent of zero – a single peppercorn has miniscule monetary value and would never be collected in practice. However, whilst a peppercorn is almost the universal standard (and the phrase ‘peppercorn rent’ is relatively well known) it is not the only option and we do occasionally find leases where a more creative solution has been used.
In central Cambridge, there is an award winning development that was designed and built in the late 1950s and early 1960s in the style of a traditional Cambridge college courtyard and has been preserved with a Grade II listing. The land was originally held by Jesus College but later enfranchised by the residents. Here, the leases specify a ground rent of a single red rose, payable at Michaelmas. Other options that have been discovered in historical documents include a grain of wheat, a pair of capon and a pair of white gloves!
There was once a thriving industry mining dinosaur poo in Cambridge
After the Napoleonic wars, there was a food shortage and in turn a growing demand for fertiliser. By chance, huge quantities of a new source of fertiliser was discovered in what was once the brick fields just north over the River Cam, very close to the present home of the Tees office.
The substance, coprolite, was the fossilised faeces of dinosaurs from over 100 million years ago, and could be ground into powder and mixed with water to make an extremely effective fertiliser for crops.
In the mid to late 1800s, coprolite was found and worked across multiple sites in Cambridgeshire, supporting an industry of significant commercial value.
The Law Society now recommends that solicitors carry our desktop environmental searches to assess various risks when acting in residential property transactions. It is not uncommon for Cambridgeshire properties to be nearby to historic coprolite pits and to comment on potential ground instability issues.
Why work with Tees to buy a property in Cambridge?
Tees have residential property experts based in each of our five offices. Our lawyers can and do routinely deal with transactions across the country.
As members of the Law Society’s Conveyancing Quality Scheme, we will always adopt uptodate best practice, ensuring a dependable level of quality advice to all of our clients.
