The Queen Edith, the first new build pub in Cambridge in over 30 years, opened on Wulfstan Way on 24th April.
This is the third pub in the city run by Milton Brewery, following their reopening of the Devonshire Arms in 2010, and the Haymakers in 2013. We visited on the opening weekend and there were five Milton beers on handpump, alongside three or four guests including B&T Edwin Taylor’s Extra Stout and Star Brewing Meteor. As with the other Milton pubs in the city, the excellent Moravka lager, brewed in the Peak District, is on keg. Likewise, the interior furnishings will be familiar to anybody who has set foot in their other pubs, especially in the snug bar with its dark wood, high-backed seats. The lounge is a larger, lighter room and features the main bar. We enjoyed a couple of pints of Milton’s Justinian in the snug and a good vegetarian nut loaf Sunday roast.
The Queen Edith is built on what was the car park of the previous pub of that name that opened in December 1961, around the time the nearby Addenbrookes Hospital began admitting patients on its new site. Originally a Lacon house, the first licensees were Mr & Mrs Coop.
It closed 50 years later in December 2011; the last to run the pub was Paul St John-Campbell, who was there for over two years before he was made redundant. In any case, the previous year owners Punch Taverns had applied to have the pub demolished and replaced by 8 houses, arguing the pub was unviable. These plans were rejected but the pub was sold, and in the hands of developers Danescroft new plans were approved that allowed the pub to be demolished last year and the new pub built, alongside a block of 12 flats. It’s a nice building, the first new build pub in the city since the Ancient Druids in 1984 (closed in 1996 and now a Chinese restaurant) with a large catchment area and few other pubs nearby. Tantalisingly, Milton brewery said they see this as a potential template for the development of other redundant pub sites.
Pints and Pubs 