Day 6 Cambridge

Today we had a slower start, so we postponed our trip to Ely till tomorrow. We had tickets to go back to King’s College, which I mentioned earlier was the only one of the 31 colleges which is open. The rest are closed because it is exam time. This time we were able to take photos in the chapel, and also to walk around the grounds. Of course anyone who’s watched Lewis or Morse or other similar shows knows that at Oxford there are lots of “Keep off the Grass” signs, and of course Cambridge is no different. However, we could walk in the grounds that were between the buildings and the river. It was good to see the punts and canoeists from a different perspective, and there was not quite as much traffic on the river today.

One thing we’ve been surprised about is how these huge buildings are fronting the narrow streets. Even if you aren’t looking for a particular college you suddenly come upon an amazing, imposing edifice, and you see that it’s one of the colleges which has been part of the University since the fourteenth century. Our last photo shows Trinity College, which was founded in 1546 by HenryVIII. There’s an apple tree growing in the front garden, reminding visitors that Sir Isaac Newton was a student there. Nobody pretends that it’s THE apple tree which helped him to discover the law of gravity, but it’s a fun reminder. Incidentally, over the years 32 Trinity men have been awarded the Nobel Prize.

We also saw the Round Church. It was built around 1130. There is a really strong Christian presence in the city. Many of the university colleges were founded by different church organisations. Also many had the patronage of royalty. But not all are hundreds of years old. A number were founded in the nineteenth century and quite a few since the 1950s. The student population is 24,000 in a city of 140,000, and it has a really young feel, despite the age of so many of the buildings.

So, tomorrow it’s Ely here we come.Read more