THE CHERRY TREE

66 Fordham Road, Soham, Cambridgeshire, CB7 5AH
Tel: 01353 720405

The original 'Cherry Tree' was a lath and plaster house built with reeds in the walls and with a slate roof. In 1924, Mr Ivan Palmer, a farm foreman from near Bury St Edmunds, became licensee. He had a smallholding around the Wicken area and he kept horses.
In 1931, the Gibson brothers of Soham and some friends built a replica of the ship "The Empress of Britain" on a lorry for the Soham Hospital Parade. It was made in the lane by the side of the pub and Mr Palmer took some photographs of the event. When the parade was finished, the float was covered with coppers and coins showing what an impressive sight it had made.
When Mr Palmer gave up the pub, a Mr Lawrence took over, and then it was occupied by Mr Harry Durrell and his family. One night in 1947 the family was awakened by their dog to find the pub on fire, luckily the family were able to escape to safety before the fire took hold. The reeds in the walls had been ignited by the heat from the fire and the family lost their home and belongings in the blaze. A prefabricated residence was erected close by, and Mr Durrell carried on the pub from there, but personal troubles prevented him from continuing as a new building was erected only yards away. Other landlords by the names of Brown, Wheeler and Digby followed until Mr Charles (Podge) Lomas, took over.
Whilst Mr Lomas was in residence at 'The Cherry Tree', the bandstand was moved from its original location, on the Recreation Ground, to the pub grounds in 1991, where it was renovated and is now used by visiting bands. He also set aside one and a half acres of ploughed land and had it grassed to allow a children's playground and beer garden to be constructed. The pub has become a very popular haunt during the summer evenings and the extensions and alterations carried out by Mr Lomas have vastly enhanced the pleasure of drinking at 'The Cherry Tree'. The most recent licensees were Mr Greg Theobald and Mrs Ann Theobald who left the pub in October 2001 and it is now run by Mr Derek Smith and Ms Maureen Talbot. By taking over as landlord, Mr Smith has actually made a dream come true!
Because in his former job in telecoms, he used to drive past the Cherry Tree in Soham and think how much he'd like to run it.
The couple went into the pub trade 10 years ago and it was somewhat of a coincidence they ended up moving to Soham and fulfilling that dream.
Mrs Talbot said: "We spent four years in Drinkstone, Suffolk, before taking on a pub in Stowmarket in Suffolk. One day our stocktaker asked us if we'd ever thought of taking on another pub. Derek said only if it was the right one. He had some paperwork with him about pubs which were available and we were looking through them and saw the Cherry Tree."
And the rest, as they say, is history.