BEAUTIFUL BRITAIN--CAMBRIDGE
By Gordon Home
[Illustration: THE OLD GATEWAY OF KING'S COLLEGE
This is now the Entrance to the University Library. At the end of the
short street is part of the north side of King's College Chapel.]
CONTENTS
PAGE CHAPTER
3 I. SOME COMPARISONS
6 II. EARLY CAMBRIDGE
15 III. THE GREATER COLLEGES
35 IV. THE LESSER COLLEGES
51 V. THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY, THE SENATE HOUSE, THE
PITT PRESS, AND THE MUSEUMS
57 VI. THE CHURCHES IN THE TOWN
64 INDEX
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE ILLUSTRATION
Frontispiece 1. THE OLD GATEWAY OF KING'S COLLEGE
17 2. THE LIBRARY WINDOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE
24 3. IN THE CHOIR OF KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL
33 4. THE ENTRANCE GATEWAY OF TRINITY COLLEGE
40 5. THE GATE OF HONOUR, CAIUS COLLEGE
49 6. THE OLD COURT IN EMMANUEL COLLEGE
56 7. THE CIRCULAR NORMAN CHURCH OF THE HOLY
SEPULCHRE
On the cover 8. THE "BRIDGE OF SIGHS," ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE
CHAPTER I
SOME COMPARISONS
"..._and so at noon with Sir Thomas Allen, and Sir Edward Scott and
Lord Carlingford, to the Spanish Ambassador's, where I dined the first
time.... And here was an Oxford scholar, in a Doctor of Laws'
gowne.... And by and by he and I to talk; and the company very merry
at my defending Cambridge against Oxford._"--PEPYS' _Diary_ (May 5,
1669).
In writing of Cambridge, comparison with the great sister university
seems almost inevitable, and, since it is so usual to find that Oxford
is regarded as pre-eminent on every count, we are tempted to make
certain claims for the slightly less ancient university. These claims
are an important matter if Cambridge is to hold its rightful position
in regard to its architecture, its setting, and its atmosphere.
Beginning with the last, we do not hesitate to say that there is a
more generally felt atmosphere of repose, such as the mind associates
with the best of our cathedral cities, in Cambridge than is to be
enjoyed in the bigger and busier university town. This is in part due
to Oxford's situation on a great artery leading from the Metropolis to
large centres of population in the west; while Cambridge, although it
grew up on a Roman road of some importance, is on the verge of the
wide fenlands of East Anglia, and, being thus situated off the
trade-ways of England, has managed to preserve more of that genial and
scholarly repose we would always wish to find in the centres of
learning, than has the other university.
Then this atmosphere is little disturbed by the modern accretions to
the town. On the east side, it is true, there are new streets of dull
and commonplace terraces, which one day an awakened England will wipe
out; there are other elements of ugly sordidness, which the lack of a
guiding and controlling authority, and the use of distressingly
hideous white bricks, has made possible, but it is quite conceivable
that a visitor to the town might spend a week of sight-seeing in the
place without being aware of these shortcomings. This fortunate
circumstance is due to the truly excellent planning of Cambridge. It
is not for a moment suggested that the modern growth of the place is
ideal, but what is new and unsightly is so placed that it does not
interfere with the old and beautiful. The real Cambridge is so
effectively girdled with greens and commons, and college grounds
shaded with stately limes, elms, and chestnuts, that there are never
any jarring backgrounds to destroy the sense of aloofness from the
ugly and untidy elements of nineteenth-century individualism which are
so often conspicuous at Oxford.
Cambridge has also made better use of her river than has her sister
university; she has taken it into her confidence, bridged it in a
dozen places, and built her colleges so that the waters mirror some of
her most beautiful buildings. Further than this, in the glorious
chapel Henry VI. built for King's College, Cambridge possesses one of
the three finest Perpendicular chapels in the country--a feature
Oxford cannot match, and in the church of the Holy Sepulchre Cambridge
boasts the earliest of the four round churches of the Order of the
Knights Templars which survive at this day.
But comparisons tend to become odious, and sufficient has been said to
vindicate the exquisite charm that Cambridge so lavishly displays.