Local historian Jonathan Crofts revealed Cambridge Park with a talk based on his book Meadows, Mansions and Munitions. Cambridge House and Park’s streets and gardens have a history to rival that of neighbouring Marble Hill House and Park.
Using many illustrations and sharing stories of some of its colourful characters, Jonathan:
* covered how the original 17th-century Twickenham Meadows became the Cambridge Park estate and progressed into today’s affluent riverside suburb
* examined whether the 19th- and 20th-century Little and Foulkes families were really "dodgy developers" or "local visionaries"
* described how the area became a veritable "Belgium-on-Thames" in the First World War
* recounted how the Thames-side munitions factory become a world-ranking ice rink and then met a contentious demise in the late 1980s.
Jonathan Crofts is the author of Meadows, Mansions and Munitions: Stories and Lives of Cambridge Park, described by former Twickenham MP Sir Vince Cable as a meticulously researched, comprehensive, beautifully illustrated history of that part of Twickenham… Jonathan Crofts has managed to unearth just about every photograph, art work, map and architects’ drawing of the area over the last few centuries and has compiled a detailed account of the characters who lived there and shaped its history and geography."
Jonathan has lived in the Cambridge Park area of East Twickenham since 1993, and has followed local history ever since through reading, talks, walks and visits, as well as his own research and photography. He has built an extensive collection of local antique prints.
