Half of the country cheers for Oxford and the other half cheers for Cambridge. When the University Boat Race comes round we’re all secretly hoping that the other side will sink (or is that just me?). I’m actually not that fussed, to be honest. I wasn’t much of an academic at school so the only way I was ever coming here was on a day-trip on the train.
Your first view of Cambridge when you pull into the station will be rather disappointing… it’s the same bland flats and concrete office blocks that you see everywhere else. What you need to do is escape from the station as quickly as you can and head up Station Road and then Hills Road… towards that big church steeple you can see in the distance. That’s the church of Our Lady & English Martyrs – the first decent building in Cambridge. Then take a left down Lensfield Road and right into Trumpington Street.
You’ll have been walking for a good 15-20 minutes by this point, but don’t worry because things will start to pretty up considerably now. Once you pass the Fitzwilliam Museum (you can’t miss it – it looks like the British Museum) then you’ll be in the touristy part of Cambridge. I’m going to save this museum for the end because it’s on the way back to the station.
A visit to Cambridge is all about the colleges and the architecture – that’s why you’ve come here. You need to be able to see the beauty in bricks and buildings otherwise there’s no point coming. That’s what most of your day is going to be from this point on: walking around the colleges. And the road you’re on right now is the one you need to remember: Trumpington Street. It changes its name as you walk along it (to King’s Parade and Trinity Street), but you’ll be following the long line of it for the rest of the day. It’s impossible to get lost – just keep coming back to this road and the colleges are dotted along either side of it.
A lot of the colleges look a bit intimidating and seem out of bounds to the public, but they do actually let you inside most of them for free (sometimes you have to pay a few quid). You won’t be allowed to enter any of the university buildings though (apart from an occasional chapel), so stick with the open courtyards and paths around the greens – don’t go charging through all of the doors for chrissakes because you’ll end up in a bit of bother.
The first college on the left is called Peterhouse. It’s not the best in town but it’s worth a quick five minutes to get you in the mood. There’s a nice little green underneath the arch, and some pretty little lampposts and flower boxes hanging on the windows.
Pembroke is a real beauty once you brave it past the arch. Poke your nose in far enough to see the building in the far corner with the grey spire and brown brickwork. They’ve got a little chapel as well.
Now take a detour down Silver Street and find the entrance to Queen’s College. You have to pay a few quid to enter this one but I think it’s worth it – this is the first college that will really knock your socks off. It’s 550 years old and they’ve got some original timber-framed Tudor buildings inside – the proper wonky ones with sloping walls. Their Old Hall dates back to the 1450s.
If you continue walking down Silver Street to the river then you’ll come across the famous Mathematical Bridge (you will already have walked over it if you paid the entrance fee to Queen’s). There’s a persistent myth that Isaac Newton designed it but he didn’t – it’s just a plain old wooden bridge. If you’re feeling adventurous then you can pay for a punt and have a lazy float in a boat. They seem to hire gangly students to do the actual punting, and I witnessed about three crashes whilst I was standing there watching – no joke! It’s a good job the boats are flat and wide otherwise they would have tipped the poor tourists into the water.
Now head back out onto Trumpington Street because the next college is a blinder: Corpus Christi. You have to pay a few quid to enter this one as well but you’ll definitely get your money’s worth: you’ll see a couple of the courts, a tiny little courtyard garden and the inside of their chapel. It was whilst I was walking around here that I realised how young the students are. I had a picture in my head of Cambridge being full of bespectacled Alan Turing-type geniuses, tall and lanky and weighed down by a satchel full of folders, but of course it’s nothing like that at all – it’s all twenty-year-old kids in marijuana t-shirts with their heads clamped inside chunky headphones. Twenty years from now these kids will probably be running the country – God help us!
If you thought that Corpus Christi was nice then wait until you get to King’s College further along. This is the most expensive college to enter but it’s worth it for the grounds alone. You can also have a wander across the parkland at the back and see some more people punting on the river. The only building that you are actually allowed to enter is the famous King’s College Chapel – home to that famous choir of angelic-looking schoolboys who sing Christmas carols at the Royal Albert Hall. Imagine twenty kids called Cuthbert, Tarquin and Hugh, all wearing white ruffs and red dresses – that’s the King’s College Choir. They are probably chain-smoking hoodlums in real life.
Everybody is supposed to love the interior but I guess I must be spoilt, because it just seemed like a big empty box to me. The size of it is certainly impressive (and the vaulted roof too, if you can bend your neck high enough), but there are no columns or statues or tombs or interesting side chapels to see, and the stained glass windows are too bright and high up to provide a light show. It hasn’t even got a proper altar – just a plain wooden table at the far end. Sorry God, but I am not impressed at all. I’ll stick with Westminster Abbey thank you very much. I must be the only tourist in town who was disappointed by the inside of King’s.
The big church opposite is called St. Mary’s and if you stump up a few quid you can climb up the windy stone stairs to the platform at the top. Be advised that it’s quite a strenuous climb. There are a couple of places to rest on the way up but it’s still a heart-thumping workout. Assuming you don’t die climbing it you’ll be treated to a fantastic view over Cambridge. You can see right down onto King’s College and Clare’s College next-door, all the way up to Trinity College and beyond. It really is a good view and it’s definitely worth braving the stairs. (And it’s even worse coming down!)
The next big college is Trinity’s whose ancient gatehouse is very reminiscent of the one at Canterbury. It’s worth stumping up a few bob to see inside the courtyard because this was the only chapel I saw all day that actually had some decent statuary inside. The altar is quite nice as well, but they’ve roped it off for the devoted (club members only).
St. John’s is another very nice college. This one has a chapel and lots of atmospheric courtyards to walk around in, some of which remind me of the Tudor Hampton Court. Unfortunately they’ve also decided to stain one of the courtyards with a truly horrendous piece of modern architecture. Why do they do that? It’s like painting a boil on the Mona Lisa’s nose. Go and have a look at the Fisher Building and the Cripps building behind the back of New Court, and tell me that’s not the most horrendous piece of architecture you’ve ever seen in your life. Apparently that building won a lot of prizes (that’s what they tell you in the guide). Presumably they were booby prizes.
Carry on walking down the road until you reach the Round Church. This is the poor man’s version of Temple Church in London, and is definitely not worth the entrance fee. Whatever history they had inside the building has long since leaked out.
The only other college that you might want to visit is Christ’s, because it’s associated with Margaret Beaufort. If you know your Tudor history then you’ll recognise this lady as the mother-in-law from hell. It has a nice little green and a tiny chapel inside, but nothing spectacular.
So that’s about it for the colleges. You might want to have a little stroll around the side streets before you go home, because there’s plenty of old architecture around town (it’s everywhere). Alternatively, you might like to try one of those city bus tours instead, which will fill in the history and show you what you’ve missed.
I was planning on telling you what the Fitzwilliam Museum was like but the damn place is shut! It doesn’t open on Mondays so I’m stuck outside the front door. I’ve tried banging on it and kicking it but there’s no answer – sorry about that. So I decided to visit the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences instead… which turned out to be about as interesting as it sounds. Imagine the Natural History Museum without any of the good stuff. It’s just shelves of shells and stones and bones. They’ve got some fossilised leaves and rocks of coral as well – flints, axe-heads, crystals, minerals and meteorites. There are thousands of them in dusty wooden cabinets.
So here comes the million-dollar question: is Cambridge worth a visit? Yes, I think so. But it’s all about the architecture. If you can’t be bothered to walk from college to college and admire the buildings then it’s hardly worth going. And all you’re really going to see are some exterior courtyards and an occasional chapel (including the huge one at King’s) – the town doesn’t have the variety of attractions that Oxford does.
So if you’ve only got time for one day trip then I’d definitely pick Oxford (or Bath).
If you enjoy Cambridge then you might also like Oxford and Bath
