Day trip from London – Cambridge

If you fancy a day trip from London, Cambridge makes an excellent choice. It’s an hour from London King’s Cross railway station (though the station is a long walk from the centre of town – probably best to get a bus), with frequent trains. And it’s very, very different from London – still a small East Anglian town in many ways despite its recent growth, and of course very much focused on the University and colleges.

There’s almost too much to see. You can’t get everything done in a day, but you should choose from the following sights according to your taste.

• King’s College Chapel – this is the summit of the English Perpendicular style, a gorgeous and most unusual chapel crowned by little pepperpots and with the most amazing fan vault 60 feet above. But don’t miss the marvellous stained glass, which is a full set of 15th century Flemish glass still in its original place – or the fine woodwork of the choir screen and organ, which proudly displays the ‘HA’ of Henry VIII and Queen Anne Boleyn. The rest of the college may look Gothic, but it all dates from the 19th century, except for the classical Gibbs building with its huge open archway. You’ll also note the stripy lawn, one of the best in the world I think and certainly one of the most labour-intensive!
• The Fitzwilliam Museum is a little way out of the centre (follow King’s Parade past Pembroke and Peterhouse), in a neoclassical style building. It’s an interesting collection of antiquities, paintings, applied arts, and manuscripts. Perhaps nothing truly outstanding in the way that, say, the British Museum has, but without the crowds, If you’re a culture vulture you will love the ‘Fitz’. (Closed on Mondays.)
• The Cam and the ‘backs’ are best seen from a punt, which you can hire from one of a number of punt stations. (Colleges on the Backs also have their own punts but these are for the use of members of the college.) You’ll see the ‘bridge of sighs’ at John’s – actually nothing like the Venetian original – and the mathematical bridge at Queens’, said to have been put together without nails, and more of those amazing stripy lawns. (If Oxford is the home of lost causes, Cambridge is the home of lawnmowers!)
• Grantchester makes a lovely excursion from Cambridge. If you enjoy a hike, take the path through fields along the Cam. There are a couple of good pubs and tea rooms – and of course this is the famous place of which Rupert Brooke wrote, ‘Stands the church clock at ten to three, And is there honey still for tea?’ (There is.)
• Trinity College has the largest courtyard in Cambridge, all red brick, dressed ashlar and cobblestones, with a delicate Renaissance pavilion in the centre, and the classical Wren Library tucked behind. Henry VIII founded the college by putting together several existing halls and colleges, and if you look very carefully at the architecture of the Great Court you may be able to see the joins.
• Queens’ College is tucked away beside the Cam and Silver Street bridge. Note that the apostrophe is after the S, unlike King’s, because it was founded by TWO queens. This is a lovely smaller college, with an intimate feeling – despite the brick being the same as that used on Trinity’s great gate, it has a completely different feeling.
• Cambridge market is worth visiting – you can’t really miss it, as it’s pretty much opposite King’s. There always used to be a stall with vintage student clothes – white flannels and collarless shirts – and one with second hand bikes, the vital method of student transport around here.
• Evensong at a Cambridge college chapel is a quintessential English experience, with hooty-voiced chaplains singing the responses and the gloriously ethereal sound (at King’s and John’s) of boys’ voices singing the treble line. (Except on Wednesdays when the boys have a day off at King’s.) Take in evensong at 530, before getting your train home.

By the way, one note on linguistics. In both Oxford and Cambridge, the colleges are built round open spaces – very similar in this to the medieval great house or palace. (If you’ve been to Hampton Court you might find it familiar.) But in Oxford, they’re called ‘quads’ – in Cambridge,  they’re ‘courts’.

Photo by Hwei Shan Lo on flickr