Mill Road, Cambridge

Mill Road is a street in southeast Cambridge, England. It runs southeast from near to Parker's Piece, at the junction with Gonville Place, East Road, and Parkside. It crosses the main railway line and links to the city's ring road (the A1134). It passes through the wards of Petersfield and Romsey, which are divided by the railway line. It is a busy, cosmopolitan street home to many independent businesses, churches, a Hindu temple and a mosque.

Near the northwestern end to the south in Mortimer Road off Mill Road is Hughes Hall, one of the University of Cambridge colleges. Behind Hughes Hall is Fenner's, the cricket ground of the University of Cambridge, which has hosted first-class cricket since 1848. To the north is Anglia polytechnic, formerly Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology (CCAT).

Mill Road was originally a quiet country lane leading to the southeast out of the city of Cambridge, named after the windmill that stood at what is now the corner of Covent Garden. The coming of the railways in the mid-19th century brought about a rapid development of the eastern part of the city after the University of Cambridge repeatedly blocked attempts to build a more central station. The population of the Mill Road area was listed as 252 in 1801, 6,651 in 1831, 11,848 in 1861 and 25,091 in 1891.

Petersfield and Romsey Town, the areas of Mill Road to either side of the railway bridge, developed in markedly different ways.

Petersfield, to the west of the railway, was originally developed by Gonville and Caius and Corpus Christi colleges (a fact reflected in the naming of the area's streets after college fellows). In 1838 the Cambridge Union Workhouse was opened, a building subsequently to become the Mill Road Maternity Hospital and finally a sheltered housing scheme.

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