Tag Stuart McPherson

Mile Cross Photographic Walks and Mile Cross Story Finders.

The Mile Cross Man 6 Comments

This is just a short entry to let you all know that I am still here. I realise that it’s been quite a while since I’ve written anything (for this website at least) but that doesn’t mean I’m no longer involved or engaged. Over the last few months I’ve been spread quite thin with various Mile Cross related projects; I’ve written a piece about the trees here in Mile Cross for the Norfolk Gardens Trust Magazine (downloadable here soon), I’ve been writing pieces for the new Mile Cross Newsletter, “mileXchange”, which hopefully you read after it dropped through your letterbox recently (if you live in Mile Cross, that is), the second issue should follow shortly. I’ve also been helping to come up with ideas on how to use the soon-to-open community space named the “mileXchange” in the former Draytona Bakery shop on Drayton Road. On top of all that, I’ve also spent a considerable amount of my spare time as one of the lead researchers for the “Mile Cross 100” project which in 2023 will celebrate the Mile Cross estate turning one hundred years of age.

MX100 logo.

We aim to celebrate a Centenary of Mile Cross by creating a play, a pageant, a website and a book about Mile Cross, so there will be lots to look forward to in the next few months, some of which we’re hoping residents or former residents of Mile Cross can get involved with.

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Arthur Prentice. “Fungi”

The Mile Cross Man 10 Comments

If you speak to anybody who remembers growing up on the Mile Cross Estate from the very early days and right through until the 1960’s it won’t take them too long before they mention a seemingly infamous character going by the name of “Fungi”, his farm or his pit. “Old Fungi”, “Farmer Fungi” or even “Cowboy Fungi” was actually a chap named Arthur Prentice and he had moved out of the city centre to and into number 64 Appleyard Crescent to be closer to the countryside, which back then was just across the road.

Arthur was a Market Gardener who before relocating to Mile Cross had lived at Rupert Street and Waddington Street and in 1911 at the age of 33 married Minnie Abbs at the Holy Trinity Church on Essex Street. Arthur’s father was a Bankers Agent named Frederick Prentice and his wife, Minnie came from a Gardening family; her father Jacob Abbs profession being a Gardener, which is probably how Arthur and Minnie had met.

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