Cambridge Festival: Does Mill Road Matter? Local History and Museums in the 21st Century

Roger Lilley looks at the relationship between a local history museum and a local history group and the opportunities presented for their interaction.

Roger will be talking about the Museum of Cambridge, its history, trials and tribulations and future development. He’ll be talking about the way it can interact with local history societies and in particular with the Mill Road History Society. He’ll look at their legacy to the Museum, Capturing Cambridge, and how the Museum has used that resource to widen its outreach and collect more resources.

He’ll also look at new material that the Museum has collected on people and events in the Mill Road area and talk about opportunities to enrich that collection of data further. In comparison, he will look at other roads, communities and villages in Cambridgeshire and how the Museum has and continues to play a role in fostering a knowledge of local history.

He will ask how communities such as those living in the Mill Road area would like to see the future of the Museum of Cambridge, and whose responsibility it is ultimately is to ensure that its collection and influence continues into the 21st century.

Roger is currently the chair of the Trustees of the Museum of Cambridge. He is a former Cambridge primary school teacher with a mixed background in classics, religious polyphony, catastrophe reinsurance and environmental campaigning. He’s lived in Cambridge for over thirty years and devoted himself to local history research for the last ten.

This talk is a joint venture between the Mill Road History Society and the Museum of Cambridge. Entry is free and open to all. Booking is recommended via an email to bookings@millroadhistory.org.uk but everyone is welcome on the night subject to space.

This event is part of Cambridge Festival 2024 run by the University of Cambridge.

Note the entrance to the Community Centre is on Hazell Street. To reach it from Mill Road walk down Headly Street past the old Library, turn right onto Hazell Street and then the entrance is on your right. If you arrive after 7:30pm please press the buzzer and we will let you in.