For many years Chrishall was solely an agricultural village with farming providing so much of the work. However up on the hill top you also had to be fairly self-sufficient with the nearest towns of Royston and Saffron Walden each five miles away in opposite directions. So as well as the farms you find local business: shops: bakers, butchers, post office and telegraph office; somewhere to get your boots made or mended. Those trades connected with farming such as the wheelwright, blacksmiths and farriers, a horse breeder and rabbit breeder too. There was a coal merchant and at one time the windmill to grind the grain produced from the fields.
As transport developed so did the village businesses so we see garages and bicycle shops appearing. And one of the larger business to run from the village, Drage and Kent with their traction engines. And coming to more modern times the bus station and haulage businesses.
In this section of the website we look at Chrishall at Work.
Click on a photograph or article title to read more.
Where Loveday Close now stands in the middle of the village was for many years a much more industrial looking area. For it was here that first Weeden's, then Premier Travel of Cambridge and finally Funston's buses transported village inhabitants to the local market...
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