THE CHURCHES IN THE TOWN
Almost everyone who goes to Cambridge as a visitor bent on sightseeing
naturally wishes to see the colleges before anything else, but it
should not be forgotten that there are at least two churches, apart
from the college chapels, whose importance is so great that to fail to
see them would be a criminal omission. There are other churches of
considerable interest, but for a description of them it is
unfortunately impossible to find space.
Foremost in point of antiquity comes St. Benedict's, or St Benet's,
possessing a tower belonging to pre-Conquest times, and the only
structural relic of the Saxon town now in existence. The church was
for a considerable time the chapel of Corpus Christi, and the ancient
tower still rises picturesquely over the roofs of the old court of
that college.
Without the tower, the church would be of small interest, for the nave
and chancel are comparatively late, and have been rather drastically
restored. The interior, nevertheless, is quite remarkable in
possessing a massive Romanesque arch opening into the tower, with
roughly carved capitals to its tall responds. Outside there are all
the unmistakable features of Saxon work--the ponderously thick walls,
becoming thinner in the upper parts, the "long and short" method of
arranging the coigning, and the double windows divided with a heavy
baluster as at Wharram-le-Street in Yorkshire, Earl's Barton in
Northamptonshire, and elsewhere.
Next in age and importance to St. Benedict's comes what is popularly
called "the Round Church," one of the four churches of the Order of
Knights Templar now standing in this country. The other three are the
Temple Church in London, St. Sepulchre's at Northampton, and Little
Maplestead Church in Essex, and they are given in chronological order,
Cambridge possessing the oldest. It was consecrated the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre, and was built before the close of the eleventh
century, and is therefore a work of quite early Norman times. The
interior is wonderfully impressive, for it has nothing of the
lightness and grace of the Transitional work in the Temple, and the
heavy round arches opening into the circular aisle are supported by
eight massive piers. Above there is another series of eight pillars,
very squat, and of about the same girth as those below, and the spaces
between are subdivided by a small pillar supporting two semi-circular
arches. Part of the surrounding aisle collapsed in 1841, and the
Cambridge Camden Society (now defunct) employed the architect Salvin
to thoroughly restore the church. He took down a sort of battlemented
superstructure erected long after the Norman period, and built the
present conical roof.
After these early churches, the next in interest is Great St. Mary's,
the University Church, conspicuously placed in the market-place and in
the very centre of the town. It has not, however, always stood forth
in such distinguished isolation, for only as recently as the middle of
last century did the demolition take place of the domestic houses that
surrounded it. And inside, the alterations in recent times have been
quite as drastic, robbing the church of all the curious and remarkable
characteristics it boasted until well past the middle of the
nineteenth century, and reducing the whole interior to the stereotyped
features of an average parish church.
If we enter the building to-day without any knowledge of its past, we
merely note a spacious late Perpendicular nave, having galleries in
the aisles with fine dark eighteenth-century panelled fronts, and more
woodwork of this plain and solemn character in front of the organ, in
the aisle chapels, and elsewhere. A soft greenish light from the
clerestory windows (by Powell), with their rows of painted saints,
falls upon the stonework of the arcades and the wealth of dark oak,
but nothing strikes us as unusual until we discover that the pulpit is
on rails, making it possible to draw it from the north side to a
central position beneath the chancel arch. This concession to
tradition is explained when we discover the state of the church before
1863, when Dr. Luard, who was then vicar, raised an agitation, before
which the Georgian glories of the University Church passed away.
Before the time of Laud, when so many departures from mediaeval custom
had taken place, we learn, from information furnished during the
revival brought about by the over-zealous archbishop, that the church
was arranged much on the lines of a theatre, with a pulpit in the
centre, which went by the name of the Cockpit, that the service was
cut as short as "him that is sent thither to read it" thought fit, and
that during sermon-time the chancel was filled with boys and townsmen
"all in a rude heap between the doctors and the altar." But this
concentration on the University sermon and disrespect for the altar
went further, for, with the legacy of Mr. William Worts, the existing
galleries were put up in 1735, the Cockpit was altered, and other
changes made which Mr. A.H. Thompson has vividly described:
... the centre of the church was filled with an immense
octagonal pulpit on the "three-decker" principle, the
crowning glory and apex of which was approached, like a
church-tower, by an internal staircase. About 1740 Burrough
filled the chancel-arch and chancel with a permanent
gallery, which commanded a thorough view of this object. The
gallery, known as the "Throne," was an extraordinary and
unique erection. The royal family of Versailles never
worshipped more comfortably than did the Vice-Chancellor and
heads of houses, in their beautiful armchairs, and the
doctors sitting on the tiers of seats behind them. In this
worship of the pulpit, the altar was quite disregarded....
The church thus became an oblong box, with the organ at the
end, the Throne at the other, and the pulpit between them.
Of all this nothing remains besides the organ and the side galleries,
and of the splendid screen, built in 1640 to replace its still finer
predecessor, swept away by Archbishop Parker nearly a century before,
only that portion running across the north chapel remains.
Until the Senate House was built, the commencements were held in the
church, but thereafter it would appear that the sermon flourished
almost to the exclusion of anything else.
The diminutive little church of St. Peter near the Castle mound is of
Transitional Norman date, and has Roman bricks built into its walls.
O fairest of all fair places,
Sweetest of all sweet towns!
With the birds and the greyness and greenness,
And the men in caps and gowns.
All they that dwell within thee,
To leave are ever loth,
For one man gets friends, and another
Gets honour, and one gets both.
AMY LEVY: _A Farewell_.
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY BILLING AND SONS, LTD., GUILDFORD AND
ESHER.
[Illustration: PLAN OF CAMBRIDGE. By permission, from _A Concise Guide
to the Town and University of Cambridge_ (J. Willis Clark), published
by Bowes and Bowes, Cambridge.]
INDEX
Akeman Street, 8
Alcock, Bishop, 46, 47
Ashton, Hugh, Archdeacon of York, 18
Audley of Walden, Thomas Baron, 48
"Backs," The, 34
Bicon, Sir Nicholas, 43
Bolsham, Bishop, 13, 21, 51
Beaufort, Lady Margaret, 15, 18, 20, 45, 47
Bede, 6
Beza, Theodore, 54
Boleyn, Anne, 28
Burrough, Sir James, 52, 61
Cains College, 39-41
Caius, Dr., 40
Cambridge Camden Society, 59
Cambridge Castle, 7-10
Cambridge, Origin of Name, 6-9
Cavendish, Mary, Countess of Shrewsbury, 16
Caxton, William, 19
Christ's College, 20, 47-48
Clare College, 36-37
Corpus Christi College, 13, 42-43, 57
Curthose, Robert, 11
Docket, Andrew, 43
Downing College, 50
Downing, Sir George, 50
Edward III., 10, 30, 42
Edward VI., 41
Edward VII., 34
Elizabeth, Queen, 33
Elizabeth Woodville, Queen, 44
Ely, 6, 9, 12, 21
Emmanuel College, 48-49
Erasmus, 45
Essex, James, 35, 49
Fisher, Bishop, 15, 19, 44, 45
George I., 52, 53
Gibbs, James, 23
Girton, 50
Gonville, Edmund de, 39
Gonville Hall, 13, 40
Grantchester, 8
Great St. Mary's Church, 42, 59
Henry I., 11
Henry III., 51
Henry IV., 10
Henry VI., 11, 22, 23, 43
Henry VII., 23
Henry VIII., 20, 28, 29, 30
Hereward the Wake, 9
Jesus College, 46
Jones, Inigo, 37-38, 48
King's College, 10, 14, 22-28
King's Hall, 10, 13, 29
Magdalene College, 14, 48, 49
Margaret of Anjou, Queen, 43
Mary, Queen, 10, 31
Michael House, 13, 29
Mildmay, Sir Walter, 49
Moore, Dr. John, 52
Nevile, Thomas, 30
Newnham, 50
Newton, Sir Isaac, 31, 45
Parker, Archbishop, 62
Parker, Matthew, Archbishop of Canterbury, 43
Pembroke College, 13, 37-38
Pepys, Samuel, 3, 48
Perne, Dr. Andrew, 36
Perse, Dr., 40
Peterhouse, 13, 35-36, 51
Philip and Mary, 41
Pitt Press, 54
Pitt, William, 39, 53, 54
Queens' College, 43-45
Richard III., 23
Rickman, Thomas, 17
Ridley Hall, 50
Roman Cambridge, 6-9
Round Church, The, 58
St. Benedict's Church, 42, 57
St. Catherine's College, 45-46
St. John's College, 14, 15-21
St. John's Hospital, 13, 16, 21
St. Mary the Less, 36
St. Peter's Church, 36, 62
Salvin, Anthony, 59
Scott, Sir Gilbert, 15, 17
Selwyn College, 50
Senate House, 52, 53, 62
Sidney, Sir William, 49
Sidney Sussex College, 14, 49
Skeat, Professor, 7, 9
Stourbridge Fair, 10, 12
Sussex, Frances Lady, 49
Symons, Ralph, 49
Tennyson, Lord, 31
Thirty-nine Articles, 43
Trinity College, 29-31
Trinity Hall, 13, 41-42
Valance, Aymer de, 38
Via Devana, 8
Walpole, Sir Robert, 24
Whewell, William, 32
Wilberforce, William, 21
Wilkins, William, 24
William the Conqueror, 9, 10
Williams, Lord Keeper, 16
Wordsworth, William, 21, 26, 31
Wren, Bishop Matthew, 35
Wren, Sir Christopher, 34, 38
Wyatville, Sir J., 49
Wykeham, William of, 2