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HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS
IN
CAMBRIDGE AND ELY
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO
ATLANTA . SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd
TORONTO
[Illustration: _Ely Cathedral. Western Tower._]
_HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS_
IN
_CAMBRIDGE AND ELY_
BY THE
Rev. EDWARD CONYBEARE
AUTHOR OF
"HISTORY OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE," "RIDES AROUND CAMBRIDGE," ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
FREDERICK L. GRIGGS
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1910
RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, Limited.
BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND
BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
PREFACE
The Highways of Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely are usually
regarded as unattractive compared with those of England in general.
Nor is this criticism wholly unfair. The county does lack the features
which most make for picturesque rural scenery. There are no high
hills, little even of undulation, and, what is yet more fatal, a sad
sparsity of timber. The Highways, then, seem to the traveller merely
stretches of ground to be got over as speedily as may be, and he
rejoices that their flatness lends itself so well to this end.
It is however far otherwise with the Byways. These abound with
picturesque nooks and corners. In every village charming features are
to be found,--thatched and timbered cottages, hedgerow elms, bright
willow-shaded watercourses, old-time village greens, and, above all,
old-time village churches, often noble, and never without artistic and
historical interest of high order. Few counties better repay
exploration than Cambridgeshire.
And if the Highways are devoid of attraction during their course
through the country districts, they make up for it by the supreme
beauty and interest of their passage through the towns. Cambridge
itself is, as all know, amongst the loveliest and most interesting
places in existence, with its world-famed colleges and its
epoch-making history. And Ely stands in the very first rank amongst
the glorious cathedrals of England.
To introduce my readers, then, to the unique interest of these two
places, with special regard to the points mostly passed over in
guide-books, has been my chief purpose in the following pages. And to
those who may think that a disproportionate amount of my space has
been allotted to these, I would apologise by reminding them that the
vast majority of travellers perforce confine their visits to such
special centres, and have no time for exploring country lanes. But
those who can make the time will find it (as this book, I hope, will
show them) time well spent, and their exploration no small treat.
I need scarcely add that on such well-worn themes originality is
hardly possible, and that I have made use both of my own earlier
writings on the subject, and of those of others, my debt to whom I
gratefully acknowledge. Most especially am I bound to do so with
regard to Messrs. Atkinson and Clark, whose monumental work "Cambridge
Described" is a veritable mine of information, and to Professor and
Mrs. Hughes for the help which I have found in their "County Geography
of Cambridgeshire."
EDWARD CONYBEARE.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I PAGE
Cambridge Greenery. -- The Backs. -- The Lawns. -- Logan's Views. --
Old Common Fields. -- Old Cambridge. -- Origin of Cambridge. -- The
Castle. -- Camboritum. -- Granta-ceaster. -- Danes in Cambridge. --
Cambridgeshire formed. -- Battle of Ringmere. -- Norman Conquest. --
The Jewry. -- Religious Houses. -- Rise of University. -- Town and
Gown. -- Proctors. -- The Colleges. -- Examinations. -- College
Life. -- Cambridge and Oxford 1
CHAPTER II
Entrance to Cambridge. -- Railways. -- Roman Catholic Church. --
Street runlets, Hobson, Perne. -- Fitzwilliam Museum. --
=Peterhouse=, Chapel, Deer-park. -- Little St. Mary's Church,
Washington Arms. -- Gray's window. -- =Pembroke College=, Large and
Small Colleges, "Querela Cantabrigiensis," Ridley's Farewell. -- St.
Botolph's Church. -- The King's Ditch. -- =Corpus Christi College=,
Cambridge Guilds, St. Benet's Church, Firehooks, Corpus Library,
Corpus Ghost. -- =St. Catherine's College.= -- King's Parade. --
Pitt Press. -- Newnham Bridge, Hermits. -- The Backs River, College
Bridges, Hithes 20
CHAPTER III
=Queens' College=, Erasmus, Cloisters, Carmelites, Chapel. -- Old
Mill Street. -- =King's College=, Henry VI, King's and Eton, Henry's
"Will." -- King's College Chapel, Wordsworth, Milton, Windows, Rosa
Solis, Screens, Stalls, Vaulting, Side-Chapels, View from Roof 47
CHAPTER IV
Spiked gates. -- Old Kings. -- =University Library=, Origin, Growth,
Codex Bezae. -- =Trinity Hall=, Colours, Library. -- =Clare College=,
"Poison Cup," Court, Bridge, Avenue. -- The Backs, Sirdar Bonfire,
College Gardens. -- =Trinity College=, Michaelhouse, King's Hall,
Henry VIII, Boat-clubs, Avenue, College Livings, Bridge, Library,
Byron, Nevile's Court, Cloisters, Echo, "Freshman's Pillar," Prince
Edward, Royal Ball, Goodhart, Buttery, College Plate, Grace-cup,
Kitchen, Hall, Combination Room, Marquis of Granby, Tutors, Old
Court, Fountain, Gate Towers, Clock, Lodge, Chapel, Newton, Organ,
Bentley, Windows, Macaulay 78
CHAPTER V
Whewell's Courts. -- All Saints' Cross. -- The Jewry. -- Divinity
School. -- =St. John's College=, Trinity and John's, Lady Margaret,
Fisher, Hospital of St. John, Gate Tower, First Court, Hall,
Wordsworth, Compulsory Worship, Combination Room, Second Court,
Library, Great Bible, Third Court, Bridge of Sighs, New Court,
Roof-climbing, Blazers, Wilderness. -- =Caius College=, Gonville,
The Three Gates, Kitchen, "Blues." -- =Senate House=, Congregations,
Vice-Chancellor, Voting, Degree-giving. -- =University Church=, Mr.
Tripos, Golgotha, Sermons, Tower, Chimes, Jowett. -- Market Hill,
Peasant Revolt, Wat Tyler, Bucer and Fagius, Bonfires, Town and
Gown 103
CHAPTER VI
Round Church. -- Union Society. -- The "Great Bridge," Hithe. --
=Magdalene College=, Buckingham College, Pepys, Charles Kingsley,
the "College Window," Master's Garden. -- Castle Hill, Camboritum,
Cromwell's Rampart, Repulse of Charles I, the "Borough," View from
Castle. -- St. Peter's Church. -- "School of Pythagoras." --
Westminster College. -- Ridley Hall. -- =Newnham College.= --
=Selwyn College.= -- Convent of St. Radegund, Bishop Alcock. --
Midsummer Common. -- Boat Houses, Bumping Races. -- =Jesus College=,
"Chimney," Cloisters, Chapter House, Chapel, Cranmer, Coleridge 132
CHAPTER VII
=Sidney College=, Oliver Cromwell, Fellow Commoners. -- Holy
Trinity, Simeon, Henry Martyn. -- =Christ's College=, "God's House,"
Lady Margaret, Flogging of Students, Bathing forbidden, Milton,
Lycidas, Gardens, Paley, Darwin. -- Great St. Andrew's, Bishop
Perry. -- =Emmanuel College=, Harvard, Sancroft, Chapel, Ponds. --
University Museums. -- =Downing College=, Miss Edgeworth. -- Coe
Fen. -- First Mile Stone. -- Barnwell, Priory, Abbey Church. --
Lepers' Chapel, Stourbridge Fair, Vanity Fair 151
CHAPTER VIII
Roads from Cambridge. -- Cambs and Isle of Ely, Girvii, East Angles,
Mercians, Formation of County. -- Newmarket Road. -- Quy. -- Fleam
Dyke. -- Devil's Dyke. -- Icknield Way. -- Iceni, Ostorius,
Boadicea. -- Newmarket Heath, First Racing. -- Exning, Anna. --
Snailwell. -- Fordham. -- Soham, St. Felix. -- Stuntney. -- Wicken.
-- Chippenham. -- Isleham, Lectern. -- Eastern Heights. -- Chevely,
Cambridge Corporation. -- Kirtling. -- Wood Ditton. -- Stetchworth.
-- Borough Green. -- Bottisham. -- Swaffham Bulbeck. -- The Lodes.
-- Swaffham Prior. -- Reach, Peat, Submerged Forest. -- Burwell,
Church, Clunch, Brass, Castle, Geoffry de Magnaville 168
CHAPTER IX
Hills Road. -- Gog Magogs. -- Vandlebury. -- Babraham, Peter Pence.
-- Old Railway. -- Hildersham, Brasses, Clapper Stile. -- Linton. --
Horseheath. -- Bartlow, St. Christopher, Battle of Assandun. --
Cherry Hinton, War Ditches, Saffron. -- Teversham. -- Fulbourn,
Brasses. -- Wilbraham. -- Fleam Dyke, Wild Flowers, Butterflies,
Ostorius, Last Cambs Battle. -- Balsham, Battle of Ringmere,
Massacre, Church Brasses, Grooved Stones 201
CHAPTER X
London Road. -- Trumpington, Church, Brass, Chaucer's Mill, Byron's
Pool, Upper River. -- Grantchester, Church. -- Cam and Granta. --
The Shelfords. -- Sawston, Old-world Industries, Hall, Hiding-Hole,
"Little John." -- Whittlesford, Old Hospital. -- Duxford. -- Triplow
Heath, Civil War. -- Fowlmere, Hinxton, Sacring Bell. -- Ickleton,
Monolith Pillars. -- Chesterford. -- Icknield Way. -- Saffron
Walden 219
CHAPTER XI
London Road. -- Hauxton Bridge, Indulgences, Church, Becket Fresco.
-- Burnt Mill. -- Haslingfield. -- White Hill, View, Clunch Pits,
Chapel, Papal Bulla. -- Barrington, Green, Church, Porch Seats,
Chest, Fountains, Finds, Coprolite Digging, Hall. -- Foxton. --
Shepreth. -- Meldreth, Parish Stocks. -- Melbourn, Shipmoney. --
Royston, Origin, Cave, Heath. -- Bassingbourn, Old Accounts,
Villenage. -- Black Death. -- Ashwell, Source of Cam, Church,
Graffiti. -- Akeman Street. -- Barton Butts. -- Comberton Maze. --
Harlton Church, Old Pit. -- Orwell Maypole, Church, Epitaph. --
Wimpole Hall, Queen Victoria. -- Arrington. -- Shingay,
Hospitallers, Fairy Cart. -- Wendy. -- Artesian Wells. -- Guilden
Morden, Screen, St. Edmund, Confessionals 235
CHAPTER XII
Oxford Road, Observatory, Neptune, Cambridge Discoveries. -- Coton.
-- Madingley. -- Hardwick. -- Toft, St. Hubert. -- Childerley,
Charles I. -- Knapwell. -- Bourn. -- Caxton. -- Eltisley, St.
Pandiania, Storm. -- St. Neot's, Neotus and Alfred. -- Paxton Hill.
-- Godmanchester, Port Meadow. -- Huntingdon, Cromwell's Penance. --
The Hemingfords. -- St. Ives. -- Holywell. -- Overcote. -- Earith,
the Bedford Rivers, "Parallax" 265
CHAPTER XIII
Island of Ely. -- Haddenham. -- Aldreth, Conqueror's Causeway,
Belsars Hill. -- Wilburton. -- Sutton. -- Wentworth. -- Via Devana.
-- Girton, College. -- Oakington, Holdsworth. -- Elsworth. --
Conington, Ancient Bells. -- Long Stanton, Queen Elizabeth. --
Willingham, Stone Chamber. -- Over, Gurgoyles. -- Swavesey, Finials.
-- Ely Road. -- Chesterton. -- Fen Ditton. -- Milton, Altar Rails.
-- Horningsea. -- Bait's Bite, Start of Race. -- Clayhithe. --
Waterbeach. -- Car Dyke. -- Denny. -- Stretham. -- Upware. -- Wicken
Fen. 282
CHAPTER XIV
Ely. -- Island and Isle. -- St. Augustine. -- St. Etheldreda, Life,
Death, Burial, St. Audrey's Fair. -- Danish Sack of Ely. -- Alfred's
College. -- Abbey Restored. -- Brithnoth, Song of Maldon. -- Battle
of Assundun. -- Canute at Ely. -- Edward the Confessor. -- Alfred
the Etheling. -- Camp of Refuge, Hereward, Norman Conquest, Tabula
Eliensis, Nomenclature, Norman Minster. -- Bishops of Ely, Rule over
Isle. -- Ely Place, Ely House 303
CHAPTER XV
Bishop Northwold. -- Presbytery Dedicated. -- Barons at Ely. -- Fall
of Tower, Alan of Walsingham, Octagon. -- Queen Philippa. -- Lady
Chapel, John of Wisbech, Bishop Goodrich. -- Bishop Alcock. --
Bishop West. -- Styles of Architecture. -- Monastic Industries. --
Mediaeval Account Books. -- Clothing and Food of Monks. --
Benedictine Rule. -- Dissolution of Abbey. -- Bishop Thirlby. --
Bishop Wren. -- Bishop Gunning. -- Bishop Turner 324
CHAPTER XVI
Approach to Ely. -- The Park. -- Walpole Gate. -- Crauden Chapel. --
Western Tower, Galilee. -- Nave. -- Baptistery. -- Roof. -- Prior's
Door. -- Cloisters. -- Owen's Cross. -- Octagon. -- Alan's Grave. --
Transepts. -- St. Edmund's Chapel. -- Choir Stalls. -- Presbytery.
-- Norman Piers. -- Reredos. -- Candlesticks 344
CHAPTER XVII
Monuments. -- West's Chapel. -- Alcock's Chapel. -- Northwold
Cenotaph. -- Bassevi. -- Shrine of Etheldreda. -- Lady Chapel. --
View from Tower. -- Triforium. -- Exterior of Minster. -- Palace,
"Duties" of Goodrich. -- St. Mary's. -- St. Cross. -- Cromwell's
House. -- Cromwell at Ely. -- St. John's Farm. -- Theological
College. -- Waterworks. -- Basket-making 366
CHAPTER XVIII
Boundary of Fens. -- Roman Works, Car Dyke, Sea Wall, Causeway. --
Archipelago. -- Littleport, Agrarian Riots. -- Denver Sluice. --
Roslyn Pit. -- Fenland Abbeys, Chatteris, Ramsey, Peterborough,
Thorney, Crowland 386
CHAPTER XIX
Draining of Fens -- Monastic Works, Morton's Learn. -- Diversion of
Ouse. -- Local Government, Jurats, Discontent. -- Jacobean polemics.
-- First Drainage Company. -- Rising of Fen-men. -- Second Company,
Huguenot Labourers. -- Third Company, Earl of Bedford, Vermuyden. --
Old River. -- Cromwell. -- Fourth Company, Prisoner Slaves, New
River, Denver Sluice. -- Later Developments 398
CHAPTER XX
Coveney. -- Manea. -- Doddington. -- March, Angel Roof. --
Whittlesea. -- Old Course of Ouse, Well Stream. -- Upwell, Outwell.
-- Emneth. -- Elm. -- The Marshland -- West Walton. -- Walsoken. --
Walpole. -- Cross Keys. -- Leverington. -- Tydd. -- Wisbech, Church,
Trade, Castle, Catholic Prisoners, Clarkson. -- The Wash. -- King
John. 409
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
ELY CATHEDRAL, WESTERN TOWER _Frontispiece_
MAP OF CAMBRIDGE _Facing_ 1
ST. BENET'S CHURCH AND CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE 1
PETERHOUSE WALL, COE FEN 5
THE BACKS, CLARE COLLEGE GATE 9
ST. MICHAEL'S AND ALL ANGELS 13
ORIEL IN LIBRARY, ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE 18
PETERHOUSE 24
ST. MARY THE LESS, SOUTH SIDE 27
PETERHOUSE FROM ST. MARY'S CHURCHYARD 29
ST. BOTOLPH'S CHURCH 33
ST. BENET'S CHURCH, INTERIOR 37
CLARE BRIDGE 42
ST. JOHN'S BRIDGE 45
THE PRESIDENT'S GALLERY, QUEENS' COLLEGE 49
ORIEL IN QUEENS' COLLEGE 51
QUEENS' COLLEGE GATEWAY 53
CLARE COLLEGE FROM KING'S 57
KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL 61
OLD GATE OF KING'S COLLEGE 81
OLD SCHOOLS' QUADRANGLE 87
CLARE COLLEGE FROM BRIDGE 93
TRINITY BRIDGE 99
THE FOUNTAIN, TRINITY COLLEGE 103
TRINITY COLLEGE CHAPEL AND ST. JOHN'S GATEWAY 111
HALL, ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE 115
ORIEL IN SECOND COURT OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE 117
THE GATE OF HONOUR, CAIUS COLLEGE 123
PEAS HILL 130
THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY SEPULCHRE 135
ST. PETER'S CHURCH 139
REMAINS OF ST. RADEGUND'S PRIORY 141
JESUS COLLEGE GATEWAY 143
THE BACK COURT, JESUS COLLEGE 145
JESUS COLLEGE CHAPEL, EAST END 147
ORIEL OF HALL, JESUS COLLEGE 149
CHRIST'S COLLEGE CHAPEL 153
EMMANUEL COLLEGE 157
THE LEPERS' CHAPEL, BARNWELL 163
QUY CHURCH 170
FORDHAM CHURCH 177
FORDHAM 179
SOHAM 181
SWAFFHAM BULBECK 191
SWAFFHAM PRIOR 192
SWAFFHAM PRIOR CHURCHES 193
THE CASTLE MOAT, BURWELL 195
BURWELL CHURCH, WEST END 197
BURWELL CHURCH, N.E. VIEW 199
CHERRY HINTON CHURCH 207
GREAT WILBRAHAM CHURCH 211
GREAT WILBRAHAM 212
LITTLE WILBRAHAM 213
BALSHAM TOWER 214
COTTAGE AT BALSHAM 217
GREAT SHELFORD CHURCH 223
WHITTLESFORD 227
ST. PETER'S CHURCH, DUXFORD 229
HASLINGFIELD CHURCH 237
FARMHOUSE AT HASLINGFIELD 239
SOUTH PORCH, BARRINGTON CHURCH 241
SHEPRETH 243
MELBOURN 245
ASHWELL 249
ASHWELL CHURCH FROM THE N.W. 251
ASHWELL CHURCH 253
GREAT EVERSDEN 257
ROOD SCREEN, GUILDEN MORDEN CHURCH 261
COTTAGE AT STEEPLE MORDEN 263
COTON 269
COTTAGE AT TOFT 271
WILBURTON 284
THE BURYSTEAD, WILBURTON 285
SUTTON CHURCH 287
ALL SAINTS' CHURCH, LONG STANTON 291
OVER, SOUTH PORCH 293
OVER 294
SWAVESEY 296
SWAVESEY CHURCH 297
COTTAGE AT RAMPTON 299
DOVECOTE AT RAMPTON 300
THE QUAY, ELY 301
THE NORTH TRIFORIUM OF THE NAVE, ELY 305
WEST AISLE OF THE NORTH TRANSEPT, ELY 311
ELY: THE PRESBYTERY 327
ELY LANTERN 333
PRIOR CRAUDEN'S CHAPEL 347
SOUTH AISLE OF THE NAVE, ELY 351
THE TOWER FROM THE CLOISTERS 357
CATHEDRAL TOWERS 361
ST. MARY'S CHURCH 378
THE CATHEDRAL FROM THE WEST FEN ROAD 380
ST. JOHN'S FARM 383
WILLOW WALK 385
ST. WENDREDA'S CHURCH, MARCH 391
THE OLD FENLAND (NORTHERN DISTRICT) 404
THE OLD FENLAND (SOUTHERN DISTRICT) 405
ELM CHURCH 412
WALPOLE ST. PETER 414
LEVERINGTON 417
BELL TOWER, TYDD ST. GILES 419
WISBECH CHURCH 423
THE OLD COURT OF CORPUS 431
HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS
IN
CAMBRIDGE AND ELY
[Illustration: _Walker & Boutall sc._ Cambridge]
[Illustration: _St. Benet's Church and Corpus Christi College._]
HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS
IN
CAMBRIDGESHIRE
CHAPTER I
Cambridge Greenery.--The "Backs."--The Lawns.--Logan's
Views.--Old Common Fields.--Old Cambridge.--Origin of
Cambridge.--The Castle.--Camboritum.--Granta-ceaster.--Danes in
Cambridge.--Cambridgeshire formed.--Battle of Ringmere.--Norman
Conquest.--The Jewry.--Religious Houses.--Rise of
University.--Town and Gown.--Proctors.--The
Colleges.--Examinations.--College Life.--Cambridge and Oxford.
Cambridge has been described by an appreciative American novelist as
"a harmony in grey and green." And indeed it is true that few towns
are so shot through and through with greenery. The London Road enters
the place through two miles of umbrageous leafage; wide, open spaces
of grass-land--Stourbridge Common, Midsummer Common, Coldham Common,
Empty Common, Donkey Common, Peter's Field, Parker's Piece, Christ's
Pieces, Jesus Green, Sheep's Green, Coe Fen--penetrate from the
outskirts, north, south, and east, right to the heart of the town;
while the world-famous "Backs," where the road runs beneath ancestral
elms, between a continuous series of bowery College gardens and
precincts--Queens', King's, Clare, Trinity, St. John's--with their
beckoning vistas of long avenues of lime and chestnut, ring it in to
the west, and form a scene of park-like loveliness to be found nowhere
else on earth. Port Meadow, at Oxford, and the Magdalen Walks, furnish
the nearest comparison; but only to show how far in front Cambridge
stands in greenery. Even inside the Colleges this precedence shows
itself; for in Cambridge every College Court in the place, almost
without exception, unlike so many of the "Quads" of Oxford, has its
central grass-plot.
These lawns, it may be noted, are sacrosanct, not to be profaned by
the foot of anyone but a Fellow of the College[1] itself. No outsider,
from another College, however high in academic rank, may, unless
accompanied by a Fellow, cross over them; still less any member of the
College, old or young, who is not himself a Fellow, nor any casual
visitor, even of the privileged sex. Should any such attempt be made,
the College porters will politely, but quite firmly, remove the
transgressor. This convention is absolutely necessary for the very
existence of the greensward, which, if allowed to be traversed by
all-comers, would speedily be cut up and ruined.
[Footnote 1: The word "Fellow" signifies, in any College, one of the
strictly limited corporation to whom its whole property legally
belongs. This corporation is kept filled up by co-option; the most
distinguished of the junior students being usually chosen.]
This greenery, however, is a comparatively recent development in the
history of Cambridge, most of it dating no further back than the
latter half of the seventeenth century. In the last decade of that
century an artist named David Logan (or Loggan), said to have been of
Danish nationality but Scotch extraction, made a series of views of
the various Cambridge Colleges, elaborated with extraordinary care and
fidelity. So truthful and observant was he that a mysterious bird,
long a puzzle in his drawing of the great court of Trinity, has lately
been discovered, by reference to the College muniments, to have been a
tame eagle then kept by the Society. His views were reissued in 1905
by Mr. J. W. Clark, the greatest living authority on Cambridge
antiquities, and should be consulted by all who are interested in the
development of Cambridge. In these views the existing avenues in the
College enclosures at the "Backs" may be observed, but all of young
trees quite recently planted (as indeed we know to have been the case
from the College records), while right up to these enclosures run open
treeless fields, not meadows, but corn-land, where harvesters may be
seen at work and sheep grazing upon the fallow land. Most of the now
green Commons are in like manner shown to have been then under the
plough.
The late Professor Maitland, whose recent death has been so
irreparable a loss to Cambridge and to the whole historical side of
English education, has shown (in his _Township and Borough_) how truly
these views of Logan's represent the seventeenth century facts, and
how, somewhat earlier, the arable fields had come even to the river
bank on the west of the town; or, to use his own more accurate
language, that the western fields of Cambridge extended to the river
bank. Every old English town and village, it must be remembered, was
in theory (and originally in practice) self-supporting, and contained
within its boundary sufficient arable and pasture land to feed its own
inhabitants and their cattle. These were known as the "Common Fields"
of the place. They were not "Commons" in our modern sense of the word,
but were divided into small holdings amongst the townsmen, each man's
holding consisting of so many tiny strips, never more than an acre in
extent, scattered as widely as possible to make things fair for all.
They were cultivated upon the three course system; every landholder
having the right to pasture a proportionate number of cattle on the
fallow of the year, as well as in the Common Meadows. The Common
Fields of Cambridge comprised about five square miles, with the
inhabited part of the township nearly in the centre, and roughly
coincided with the existing Parliamentary Borough, though somewhat
more extensive.
This inhabited part, the mediaeval town of Cambridge, was comprised,
(at least from the tenth century to the eighteenth,) in the space
bounded by the river on the west, and on the east by a ditch, known
finally as the "King's Ditch," from having been widened by Henry the
Third in the Barons' War. This ditch left the Cam at the "King's
Mill," (the modern representative of which still stands just above
Silver Street Bridge,) and proceeded along the line of Mill Lane,
Pembroke Street, Tibbs Row, Hobson Street, and Park Street, to fall
into the river again opposite Magdalene College. Beyond the "Great
Bridge," from which the place derived its name, a small cluster of
houses climbed the steep bank, on the summit of which stood the
Castle. Our earliest records show this area as by no means thickly
covered with houses. Not only the inhabitants, but all their cattle
lived in it; so there must have been many little farmyards and gardens
interspersed amongst the dwellings.
Domesday Book gives the number of these as only 400, and a couple of
centuries later, in 1279, when the University was already in full
existence, there were scarcely more. By the middle of the eighteenth
century this number had trebled. But even in 1801, as may be seen in
Lyson's plan of the town, the King's Ditch, which was then still an
open watercourse, remained substantially the boundary of inhabited
Cambridge. And the vast suburban extensions in the areas of Barnwell,
Newnham, Chesterton, and Cherry Hinton are mostly very recent indeed;
the bulk in fact belonging to the last half century. Their rise, and
the continuous intrusion of ever fresh University and College
buildings, has had the effect of once more depleting the area of
mediaeval Cambridge, which to-day contains barely 800 houses. The whole
of the University buildings, whether ancient or modern, are contained
within this area, with the exception of the Colleges of Peterhouse,
Pembroke, Christ's and Jesus (which together with a few of the
Museums, stand just beyond the Ditch), and the New Court of St. John's
College, which is on the other side of the river, in the old Common
Field. The ecclesiastical and feminine foundations similarly situated,
Selwyn College, Westminster College, Ridley Hall, Newnham College, and
Girton College, are not recognised by the University as being strictly
"Colleges" at all.
[Illustration: _Peterhouse Wall, Coe Fen._]
Such was old Cambridge; with its eleven ancient parishes of St. Peter,
St. Giles, St. Clement, Holy Trinity, St. Michael, St. Mary (the
greater), St. Edward, St. Benet, St. Botolph, All Saints, and St. John
(which was destroyed to make room for King's College). Before the
twelfth century closed three more churches were added, those of the
Holy Sepulchre, of St. Peter (now St. Mary's the less) outside the
"Trumpington Gate," of St. Andrew (the greater) outside the Barnwell
Gate, and St. Andrew (the less) in the detached suburb which grew up
round the great "Abbey" (really an Augustinian Priory) of Barnwell.
Old Cambridge probably owed its constitution--(quite possibly its very
existence)--to the genius with which "the Children of Alfred," Edward
the Elder and his Sister, the "Lady of the Mercians," reorganised the
Midlands after the great cataclysm of the Danish wars, which in the
previous generation had swept over the district, obliterating all
earlier landmarks and boundaries. One pirate horde, under the most
renowned of all their chieftains, Guthrum--the deadliest antagonist,
and afterwards the most faithful ally, of our great Alfred,--had for a
space settled themselves in Cambridge, and from that strategic
position overawed East Anglia on the one hand and Mercia on the
other.[2]
[Footnote 2: The kingdom of Mercia comprised the Midlands, and was
(roughly) bounded on the north by the Humber and Mersey, on the west
by Wales, on the south by the Thames, and on the east by the Cam and
the Lea.]
The Cambridge which they sacked was not, however, as it would seem,
the later mediaeval town which we have been already considering, but a
much smaller stronghold on the western bank of the River, comprising
what is now known as "Castle End," and is still sometimes called "the
Borough" _par excellence_. At this point the Cam, one bank or other of
which is usually swampy even now, and was actually swamp in early
days, is touched by higher and firmer ground on both sides. The height
to the west is quite respectable, rising some eighty feet above the
stream. Here, therefore, and here alone, was there of old any
convenient passage-way for an army; the river elsewhere forming an
almost insuperable barrier to military operations, from the Fens
almost to its source. Such a site was sure to be amongst the earliest
occupied; and we find, accordingly, that both Romans and Anglo-Saxons
(presumably Mercians) successively held it. Most probably it was also
a British site; but the great Castle mound, which earlier antiquaries
attributed to the Britons, has been shown by Professor Hughes to be,
mainly at least, a Norman work.
This site was the original Cambridge, and may even have been called by
that very name in its earliest form. For it is hard not to identify
the Roman settlement (which the spade shows to have existed here) with
the "Camboritum," which from the "Itinerary of Antoninus" (an official
road book, probably of the third century A.D.) must have been
somewhere in this immediate neighbourhood. And the word Camboritum is
plausibly derived from the British _Cam Rhydd_ "the ford of the Cam."
Cam (which, being interpreted, signifies crooked) may well have been
the British name for a stream with so tortuous a course. But, if so,
it was not continuously used, so far as records can tell us.
The Roman Camboritum doubtless shared the almost universal destruction
of Roman stations which marked the English conquest of Britain; and
the site is described as still "a waste chester" two centuries later,
when the monks of Ely sought amid the ruins for a stone coffin in
which to entomb their foundress, St. Ethelreda. By this time the older
name both of the town and of the river seems to have been forgotten.
The latter was called, by the English, the Granta, and the former was
accordingly known only as Granta-ceaster--the chester, or ruined Roman
city, upon the Granta. (It should be noted that the village now called
Grantchester was, till comparatively recent days, known as Grant-set.)
Yet another century, and we find, in the days of King Egbert, the
grandfather of Alfred and the first King acknowledged by the whole
English nation, that a bridge had been built (or rebuilt) over the old
ford; and therewith the old site of Camboritum had been reoccupied
under the new name of Granta-bridge, by which it is known throughout
mediaeval history. We do not meet with "Cambridge" in literature till
the fourteenth century, nor with "Cam" till almost the date of "Camus,
reverend sire," in Milton's Lycidas.
However this may be, it is pretty certain that the Cambridge on which
Guthrum, in the year 872, marched from Repton was the "Borough" of
Castle End. After holding, or, as one chronicler (Gaimar) would have
us believe, only besieging it, for a whole year, the Danish host
hastily made off to Wareham in Dorsetshire, to take part in that life
and death struggle in the west which began with Alfred's great naval
victory off Swanage, then drove him into hiding at Athelney, and ended
with the Peace of Wedmore. By that treaty all England north of the
Watling Street was ceded to the Danes as an under-kingdom, the
"Dane-Law"; Guthrum, now a Christian and Alfred's godson, being set on
the throne. Cambridge thus became undisputedly a Danish town. The
district around was divided "with a rope" (_i.e._ by chain measure)
amongst the invaders, and submitted as an organic whole, some half
century later, to King Edward the Elder. It was probably at this time
that the town began to extend itself into the East Anglian district to
the east of the Cam. (Throughout its whole length the river, with its
marshy banks, was the boundary between the old English kingdoms of
Mercia and East Anglia; and traces of this are to be found in the
distinctive customs of adjoining villages, on one side or the other of
the stream, even to this day.) The "Saxon," or Romanesque, tower of
St. Benet's Church, may well be of this date, erected by the English
inhabitants dispossessed of their homes in the Borough by the
conquering Danes who lorded it over them.
After its submission to Edward the Elder, Cambridge began its career
as a County Town, giving its name, (as was the case in nearly all
these new Edwardian counties,) to the surrounding district, which thus
became known as Grantabrig-shire. The name covered only the southern
part of the present county; for the Isle of Ely was reconstituted
under the ancient jurisdiction of its great abbots and bishops. To
this day, indeed, it has its own separate County Council, and even a
separate motor-car lettering. The new political unit soon began to
display no small local patriotism; for we read that in the fatal
battle of Ringmere, fought on Ascension Day, 1010, between the fresh
Danish invaders, who were then pouring over the land, and the united
forces of East Anglia under the hero Ulfcytel, "soon fled the East
English. There stood Grantabryg-shire fast only."
[Illustration: _The Backs, Clare College Gate._]
The victorious Danes, naturally, proceeded to wreak special vengeance
on such obstinate foes. The county was ravaged with a ferocity even
beyond the usual Danish harryings, and Cambridge itself was sacked and
burnt. When it arose from its ashes, in the quieter days of the Danish
Canute, the first "King of England," (his native predecessors having
been Kings "of the English,") it was organised, Danish fashion, into
ten Wards, each with its own "Lawman." In the reign of Edward the
Confessor, it had, as we have seen, 400 dwelling-houses (_masurae_),
not urban cottages closely packed in rows, but mostly tenements of the
farmhouse type, each with its farmyard, the abodes of the husbandmen
who owned and tilled the Common Fields of the town.
This number of houses shows Cambridge to have been at this time an
important place, equal in population to a whole average "Hundred,"
with its ten villages; and as such we find it counted for legal
purposes under the Norman and Plantagenet dynasties. But its Common
Fields were by no means proportionately extensive,[3] so that many of
the inhabitants must already have depended upon trade for their
living.
[Footnote 3: An ordinary "Hundred" contained an area some five miles
square, instead of the five square miles which was that of old
Cambridge.]
If Cambridge fared ill at the hands of the Danes, it fared little
better at those of the Normans. William the Conqueror made the place
his headquarters in his operations against Hereward's "Camp of Refuge"
at Ely. This resulted in the ruin of fifty-three out of the 400
houses, besides twenty-seven more pulled down to make room for his new
Castle, which with its outworks and huge central keep occupied the
greater part of the old Roman site to the west of the Bridge. The loss
of these eighty houses probably brought down the population to little
over 2,000 souls. Even with this reduction, however, the town might
still claim to rank in the first class of English cities at the time;
and this is shown by the growth of a Jewry within its walls, in the
area bounded by St. John's College, Trinity College, and Bridge
Street. For the Jews, (who first came into England as camp-followers
of the Norman invaders,) naturally struck for the wealthier towns in
which to form their settlement. As the place grew in importance
Religious Houses began rapidly to spring up in and around it; the
first being the great Augustinian Abbey of Barnwell, founded by Picot,
the Sheriff of Cambridge under William the Conqueror.
The next generation saw Augustinian Canons settled in the town itself,
at the Hospital (now the College) of St. John; and Benedictine nuns at
the Priory of St. Radegund just beyond the King's Ditch, where their
conventual church is still used as the Chapel of Jesus College. A
century later, and friars of all the Orders came flocking into
Cambridge; the Grey Franciscans, the Black Dominicans, the White
Carmelites, the Austin Friars, the Friars of the Sack, the Friars of
Bethlehem. The sites occupied by the first three of these names are
to-day represented by the Colleges of Sidney, Emmanuel, and Queens'.
Friars always made for the chief centres of life, and by the
thirteenth century Cambridge had become emphatically such, by the rise
of that institution destined to give it a perennial fame, the
University.
How this rise of the University came about is an as yet unsolved
problem in history. As in the case of Oxford, the great name of Alfred
was invoked, by unscrupulous mediaeval fabricators, as concerned in its
foundation. And it is possible that there may be really traceable some
distant connection with that great saint and hero. For Alfred actually
did found amidst the ruins of Ely, after its sack by the Danes, a
small College of priests, which lived on to be the nucleus of the
restored Abbey in the days of his grandson Edgar the Peaceful. And it
is also historical fact that this restored Abbey was specially
renowned for the famous school attached to it--so famous as to count
amongst its scholars more than one future monarch. Furthermore we know
that the Ely monks taught in Cambridge also, and this may well have
been the first germ of the University.
At any rate it is certain that, in 1209, when the schools of Oxford
were for a while closed by the Government, as the outcome of a more
than usually outrageous "rag," large numbers of the students migrated
to Cambridge; which seems to point to the place having already some
educational repute. From henceforward, at all events, it attained
European reputation in this respect, for, in 1229, we find another
batch of expelled students, this time from Paris, settling themselves
here, and yet another swarm of Oxonians twenty years later.
The University had now become an organic body, with its Chancellor,
its masters, and its scholars or "clerks," so called because, being
not wholly illiterate, the Law considered them as potential members of
the clerical profession, and gave them special immunities accordingly.
They were not amenable to lay jurisdiction, but only to the milder
"Courts Christian," in which the death-penalty was never inflicted. It
seems not infrequently to have been deserved; for the earliest
undergraduates were, at first, an utterly lawless lot, and made
themselves most unpleasant neighbours to the "burgesses" of the Town.
When first they made their appearance the inhabitants of Cambridge had
just bought the right to call themselves by this dignified name. This
bargain was the upshot of a Royal visit in 1207 from King John, who,
in consideration of a payment of 250 marks, (equivalent to L5,000 at
the present value of money,) granted Cambridge a Charter of
Incorporation, with the right to be governed by a Provost and bailiffs
of their own (instead of by the King's Sheriff), and to regulate their
own markets. Twenty years later, (by a further contribution to the
royal purse,) the Provost acquired the higher title of Mayor.
But almost simultaneously, his prerogatives began to be curtailed by
the rising power of the University, to whose "Taxers" was given, in
1231, the sole right of fixing the rents which might be demanded for
lodgings from the inrushing swarm of students; while the regulation of
the market weights and measures became vested in the Proctors. The
authority of the Taxers died out when the Collegiate system became
universal, but has been revived in recent days by the "Lodging-house
Syndicate": that of the Proctors over the Market has become obsolete;
not so long, however, but that, to this day, there may be seen, in the
possession of the Senior Proctor for each year, an iron cylinder, a
yard long and an inch in diameter, which was, not so many decades ago,
the standard test for the dimensions of every roll of butter sold in
Cambridge. For butter in Cambridge was retailed by the inch; a custom
which still lingers on sporadically amongst our vendors.
The student population speedily became far more numerous than the
townsfolk, and their accommodation must have been no small problem. At
first the need was met wholly by private enterprise: University
lodgers thronged the private houses and the annexes, or "hostels," as
they are named, run up for their sole use by speculative landlords.
These hostels gradually attained to more or less of official
recognition by the University, and paved the way for the setting up of
Colleges.
[Illustration: _St. Michael's and All Angels._]
The first actual College was Peterhouse, founded by Hugh de Balsham,
Bishop of Ely, in 1284, and was of the nature of an experiment, the
success of which it took a whole generation to establish. Once
proved, a host of imitators appeared; and the following generation saw
no fewer than seven similar foundations, Michaelhouse and King's Hall
(the germs of Trinity College), Clare, Pembroke, Gonville, Trinity
Hall, and Corpus Christi College. Then came a break of a century,
followed by another outburst of zeal, which in the next hundred years
produced yet another seven: King's, Queens', St. Catharine's, Jesus,
Christ's, St. John's, and Magdalene. The last four of these were
earlier religious and scholastic foundations remodelled; and a like
process during the half century succeeding the Reformation has given
us the Colleges of Trinity, Caius, Emmanuel, and Sidney. Not till the
nineteenth century was the list added to by the appearance of Downing.
The original idea in all these foundations was to provide, not so much
for the students as for the masters who taught them. To these it was
an immense advantage to be able to dwell together in small groups and
in quiet quarters, where they could engage in research and prepare
their lectures, shut away from the turmoil of the seething crowd of
Town and Gown in the streets. And it speedily appeared that if the
seclusion of a College was helpful to the teacher it was even more
helpful to the taught. For the test applied to students by the
University before conferring upon them a Degree was by public
disputations in the schools, each candidate having to support or
oppose some literary or scientific thesis.
The memory of these wordy "opponencies" is still preserved in the
denomination of "Wrangler" bestowed on the candidates who obtain a
First Class in the Mathematical Examination for an "Honour" Degree,
and by every examination through which such a Degree can be obtained
being called a "Tripos,"[4] from the three-legged stool which played a
notable part in those old ordeals. The test demanded steadiness of
nerve and readiness of wit, as well as mere knowledge; and, in all
these, the Scholar of a College, well catered and cared for, was far
better equipped than his lawless, and often all but foodless,
non-Collegiate competitor.
[Footnote 4: Till the nineteenth century was well advanced the
Mathematical Tripos was the only avenue to the attainment of "Honours"
at Cambridge; so that even such a distinguished scholar as Lord
Macaulay was debarred from them by his inability to pass that
examination, and had to content himself with the lower status of an
"Ordinary" or "Poll" Degree (so called from the Greek [Greek: polloi]
= many, as being the refuge of the common herd of candidates).
Triposes in many other branches of knowledge, classical, scientific,
legal, historical, and linguistic, have since been added.]
Thus every College found itself confronted by a great demand for
admissions, which was met by the introduction of Scholars, so far as
the pecuniary resources of the Foundation would admit, and,
ultimately, by the admission of "Pensioners";--students who, without
being members of the Foundation, were willing to pay for a share in
its educational advantages. These Pensioners finally came to
outnumber, (in every College), the masters and scholars together, as
they do still. The original non-Collegiate students proportionately
dwindled in number; till the depopulation of the University during the
religious ups and downs of the Reformation era put an end to them
altogether. For three hundred years afterwards no one was admitted to
the University unless attached to one of the Colleges, till, in the
later decades of the nineteenth century, the great expansion which
marked that period called Non-Collegiate Students, on a limited and
tentative scale, once more into existence.
Substantially, however, at the present day, the Colleges _are_
Cambridge; and to the visitor their buildings completely out-bulk
those which belong to the University--the Senate House, the University
Church and Library, the Examination Hall, and the various Museums and
Laboratories. Each College consists of an enclosed precinct, (to which
the students are confined at night,) containing blocks of apartments,
(usually arranged in "Courts,") for Fellows, Scholars, and Pensioners,
a special "Lodge" for the Master; a Chapel; a Library; and a Hall,
with Kitchen and Buttery attached. Here the Masters sit at the "High
Table" on a dais across the upper end of the Hall, and the students at
less pretentious boards arranged longitudinally. All are bound to dine
in Hall, unless by special leave; but other meals may be in your own
rooms, of which each student has a suite of three, in which he is said
to "keep." All three are within one general outer door, or "oak," to
be opened only by a latch-key, and "sported" whenever the owner
desires his citadel to be inaccessible. Over the oak, on the outside,
is painted his name (always in white capital letters upon a black
ground), while at the foot of each staircase a similarly painted list
gives the names of all the men whose rooms are to be found upon it.
Each student's suite invariably comprises a sitting (or "keeping")
room, a bedroom, and a pantry, or "gyp-room." This last name records
the fact that till lately the functions of a housemaid were discharged
by male servants known as "gyps,"[5] who are now almost universally
superseded by female "bedmakers" appointed by the College Tutors.
[Footnote 5: These corresponded to the still existing "Scouts" at
Oxford.]
The Tutors are immediately responsible for the general supervision of
the students in the College: the actual teaching is done by Lecturers
in the various subjects, who have special apartments, "Lecture Rooms,"
provided in every College for their purposes. Every student has to
attend a certain quota of lectures, but otherwise is very much left to
educate himself, his progress being checked by periodical College
examinations, in addition to those required by the University to be
passed before he can be admitted to a Degree. The lowest Degree is
that of B.A. (Bachelor of Arts). Three years after attaining this a
man may proceed to become M.A. (Master of Arts), when he ceases to be
"in statu pupillari," and is no longer subject to the authority of the
Proctors.
These officers perambulate the town after dark to punish University
wrong-doers, usually by a fine of 6_s._ 8_d._, or some multiple of
that sum, the unit being a survival from mediaeval numismatics, as
equivalent to half a "Mark." More serious offences are met by
"Rustication," for a Term or a year, during which the offender may not
show himself in Cambridge, and, in extreme cases, by expulsion from
the University altogether. These punishments can also be inflicted by
the authorities of each College on the students of that College. But
in this domestic forum, for smaller offences the place of fines is
taken by "gating" for a certain period, during which the nocturnal
enclosure of the culprit begins at some earlier hour than usual.
As a regular rule the College gates are shut at ten p.m., after which
no outsider (student or visitor) may enter, and no inmate (under the
Degree of M.A.) pass out; though to students already out uncensured
admission is given until midnight. Once inside the gates the student
is under no obligation to keep to his own rooms, but has the run of
the College all night. He is bound, however, to spend his nights
within the walls, and not even for a single night may he be absent
without a duly signed _exeat_ from the College authorities giving him
leave. And, as he must be in residence when they require it of him, so
is he also forbidden to be in residence at such seasons as they bar;
during the greater part of each Vacation, for example, comprising half
the year.
Theoretically the Three Terms into which the Academic Year is divided
consist of about ten weeks apiece; but, in practice, they have only
eight of "Full Term," during which residence is compulsory. The first
of these is the "Michaelmas," or, as it is popularly called the
"October" term, lasting from about mid-October to mid-December. After
the Christmas vacation follows the "Lent" term, from the middle of
January to the middle of March. Then comes a month of Easter vacation,
and then the "Easter" (more generally known as the "May") term; at the
end of which the close of the working year is celebrated by a series
of social festivities in connection with the College boat races,
collectively designated "the May Week," though invariably taking place
in June. Finally comes the "Long Vacation" (the last word being
omitted in popular parlance), lasting till a new year begins in
October. Many of the more studious men are, however, permitted to
reside during July and August for the purposes of private reading. A
man in residence, we may mention, is said to be "up"; thus we meet
with such phrases as "coming up," "going down," and being "sent down,"
when ordered to leave Cambridge, temporarily or permanently, for
disciplinary reasons.
All this is very unlike Continental or American University life, but
is almost the ditto of Oxford. For Cambridge is the sister-daughter of
Oxford. It was by Oxonian colonists that the University of Cambridge
was begun; the earliest Cambridge College, Peterhouse, was not only
suggested by the earliest Oxford Foundation, Merton, but borrowed its
very Statutes; and the development of the two seats of learning has
twinned itself throughout the centuries to an extent unparalleled
elsewhere in history. The result is that to-day there are no two
places in the world so alike, socially, intellectually, and even
physically, as Oxford and Cambridge. The latter has at present the
larger number of students; but each has approximately the same number
of Colleges, and of satellite Collegiate institutions, formally or
informally connected with the University (_e.g._, the Ladies'
Colleges); and in each the Academic organisation, the social code,
and the life led by both students and teachers, is almost absolutely
identical. To experts well acquainted with both places the minute
shades of difference are of extreme interest; but to the average
visitor the places are as like as twin sisters. The very names of the
Colleges are the same in no less than a third of the cases. If there
is a Trinity at Cambridge there is also a Trinity at Oxford, if there
is a Magdalen at Oxford there is a Magdalene at Cambridge; while St.
John's, Jesus, Corpus Christi, and Pembroke are all in like manner
duplicated. And, both at Oxford and Cambridge, Colleges are named from
Queens; though a subtle difference in spelling (Queen's and Queens')
records the fact that, while one Queen founded the Oxford College, two
were concerned in the Cambridge foundation.
[Illustration: _Oriel in Library, St. John's College._]
With regard to picturesqueness and architectural merit it is difficult
to assign the pre-eminence to either place, so far as the University
and Collegiate buildings are concerned. Of each distinctive feature,
considered separately, the choicest specimen is to be found in
Cambridge--the best College Chapel at King's; the finest College Hall
and College Courts at Trinity; the most characteristic and beautiful
Library at St. John's. But, out-taken these, Oxford can show several
examples of each feature better than the next best at Cambridge. And,
apart from the University buildings, the town of Cambridge, with its
narrow streets and mean public edifices, is hopelessly outclassed by
the beautiful city of Oxford. Invidious comparisons, however, are, in
the case of sisters, more than ordinarily odious.