09 August 2009

Strolling along the Backs in Cambridge

My rooms on Staircase H in Sidney Sussex looked out onto Chapel Court (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

I was back in Cambridge once again this summer, staying in Sidney Sussex College for the annual summer school organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies. This year’s theme was “Love,” and our lecturers looked at this topic in Scripture, the writings of the Early Fathers of the Church (Patristics), and from the monastic perspective.

This was my second year at Sidney Sussex, and I am amazed at the number of Irish friends who ask me about this being the place where Oliver Cromwell’s head is buried. Because last year marked the 350th anniversary of the death of Cromwell, there was some re-evaluation of his role in Irish history, but one old school friend, who lives only a few miles outside Cambridge, still told me he would never go into the chapel at Sidney because of those associations.

Of course, I am more that a little sceptical about the veracity and accuracy of the claims made for the provenance of what is supposed to be Cromwell’s head. But Sidney has some other interesting and more positive Irish connections.

After all, there is a tradition in Sidney – first advanced by Dorothy Sayers but taken up with enthusiasm by fellows and students alike – that this is the college where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sent the young Sherlock Holmes as an undergraduate. Historically, the former fellows and students of Sidney include John Bramhall, the restoration Archbishop of Armagh; John Sterne, the founder of the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland; John Garnett, who was Bishop of Ferns and Leighlin (1752-1758) before becoming Bishop of Clogher (1758-1782); and – more recently – Brian Lenihan, the Minister for Finance.

Monastic foundations

But Sidney’s Irish and Church connections date back even further. For, like most Cambridge colleges, Sidney is built on a monastic foundation, and this was once the site of Greyfriars – not the fictional school of Billy Bunter, but a large mediaeval Franciscan foundation in Cambridge. Among the great mediaeval philosophers and theologians who lived in Greyfriars was the Irish Franciscan, John Duns Scotus (1265-1308), who was known as “Doctor Subtilis” because of the subtle distinctions and nuances of his thinking.

The arguments continue about the Irish origins and birth of Duns Scotus. He and his Franciscan contemporaries are commemorated on a plaque in Cloister Court in Sidney Sussex.

This year, my rooms were on Staircase H in Chapel Court, looking out towards the day-to-day bustle of life on Sidney Street and onto the Chapel, with its curious bell turret. Like all Cambridge colleges, the chapel is at heart of the day-to-day life of Sidney.

During my time there, as I strolled around Cambridge, it was interesting to visit many of those college chapels, and to realise the extent to which monastic life and theological training shaped the development and the history of those colleges.

Although the summer school used the Chapel in Sidney twice a day during the week for Morning Prayer and Vespers, regular chapel life had come to an end for the summer holiday period. So, on my first weekend, I attended both Choral Evensong on Saturday and the Choral Eucharist on Sunday in the chapel of King’s College, the most majestic of all the college chapels in Cambridge.

Fame and antiquity

King’s Chapel is famous worldwide – thanks to its choir and the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols on Christmas Eve each year. Tourists queue on end to gain entry to King’s Chapel, and we had to queue with them to get on both occasions. But the choir was still resident, the music was glorious, and on Sunday morning we were treated to Vaughan Williams’s Mass in G Minor, which is one of his most English compositions, dating from 1921.

The preacher on the Sunday morning was the Revd Dr Stephen Hampton, the Dean of Peterhouse, the oldest college in Cambridge. Cambridge University was founded in 1209 and this year is celebrating its 800th anniversary. But the colleges are little younger, and Peterhouse was founded in 1284 by Bishop Hugh de Balsham of Ely.

Peterhouse may have taken its name from the neighbouring, quaintly named Church of Saint Peter’s-without-Trumpington-Gate, where the scholars worshipped from the beginning. When the church was rebuilt in 1340, it was renamed Saint Mary the Less. But Peterhouse retained its name and the scholars continued to worship there until the college had its own chapel built in 1628 by Mathew Wren, uncle of the more famous Christopher Wren.

Despite the ravages of the Cromwellian era, the chapel still retains its East Window with its Crucifixion, based on Le Coup de Lance by Rubens.

The East Window in Peterhouse Chapel is based on Le Coup de Lance by Rubens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Across Trumpington Street, Pembroke College has the oldest gatehouse in Cambridge. The college was founded in 1347 by the Countess of Pembroke, the widow of a direct descendant of Strongbow. In 1355, she obtained a Papal licence to build the college chapel. The chapel has since been turned into a library, and the present restoration chapel is the first completed work by Christopher Wren.

Time for the scientists

Further along the street, neighbouring Corpus Christi was the first Cambridge college to have a quadrangle or court, as they are called in Cambridge. The first students were charged with praying for the souls of the deceased members of the Cambridge civic guilds of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary, who founded the college initially for theology students. They used Saint Bene’t’s Church, with its Saxon tower, as their church until a college chapel was built in the 16th century.

Archbishop Parker, a 16th century master remembered in the carvings at the chapel door in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The 16th century Masters of Corpus Christi included Archbishop Matthew Parker, one of the primary architects of the 39 Articles, who saved many of the monastic manuscripts and books now in the Parker Library in the college, including King Alfred’s copy of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a Psalter that once belonged to Thomas à Becket, and a sixth century Gospel, believed to have been given to Saint Augustine in 597 and now used at the enthronement of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Archbishop Parker is commemorated in a carving on the doorway into the new college chapel.

The college properties include Botolph Court, which houses 30 students. It is said to be built on the site of a 17th century plague pit and slowly sinking into it. A more attractive site for tourists is the Cirpus Clock, which was unveiled on 19 September by the physicist Stephen Hawking. The clock is called the Chronophane – the “Time Eater” – but is known among the students of Corpus as the “Time Lord” and is only accurate once every five minutes. It was conceived, designed and paid for by Dr John Taylor, who donated it to his alma mater.

The Eagle ... where great discoveries are made over a pub lunch (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Corpus owns The Eagle, one of the best-known pubs in Cambridge with its old courtyard serving as a beer garden. Because the beer garden is overlooked by Corpus student accommodation, it must be cleared by 10:30 p.m. every night. When the Cavendish Laboratory was still at its old site nearby in Free School Lane, the Eagle was a popular place for lunch for the laboratory staff.

Here Francis Crick famously interrupted lunchtime chatter on 28 February 1953 to announce that he and James Watson had “discovered the secret of life” after they had come up with their proposal for the structure of DNA. The story is told in Watson’s book, The Double Helix, and is recalled in a plaque near the entrance to the Eagle.

Unique bridges

Corpus faces Saint Catharine’s, whose Master and three Fellows were originally to study nothing but “philosophy and sacred theology.” The college is named after Saint Catharine of Alexandria, and her symbol – the Catherine wheel on which she was martyred – can be seen as the college logo on the college gates.

Behind Saint Catharine’s and abutting King’s College, on Queens’ Lane is Queens’ College, which stands on the site of an old Carmelite friary. Here Erasmus lived while he taught Greek in Cambridge. The college retains its cloisters, and has some of the finest half-timbered late mediaeval and Tudor buildings in Cambridge.

Queens’ College has one of the few known moondials in the world (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Queens’ is also known for unique moondial – one of the few known moondials in the world – and for the Mathematical Bridge, which was first built in 1749. Legend had it that the Mathematical Bridge was built without using bolts or nails, but this was found to be untrue when the bridge was damaged by a storm and rebuilt to the original design in 1905.

The bridge links the old, mediaeval college buildings with Friars’ Court, which stirred controversy when it was built in the 1960s. It is the work of Sir Basil Spence, who also designed Coventry Cathedral, and was the first modern building on the Backs.

Further north along the Backs, past King’s College, is Clare College is the second oldest college in Cambridge. This was the college of Bishop Hugh Latimer, one of the martyrs of the English Reformation in 1555. Above the altar in Clare Chapel is The Annunciation (1763) by Giovanni Battista Cipriani, one of the founders of the Royal Academy.

Clare College Chapel with The Annunciation (1763) by Giovanni Battista Cipriani (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Clare College has the oldest bridge now crossing the River Cam. But perhaps the best known bridge over the River Cam is the so-called Bridge of Sighs at Saint John’s. Saint John’s, which dates from 1511, but which has a monastic link with the foundation of the oldest college, Peterhouse.

The Bridge of Sighs (1831), designed by Henry Hutchinson, links the older courts of Saint John’s with New Court, a masterpiece of Gothic Revival architecture. But, in fact, the bridge has little in common architecturally with the Bridge of Sighs in Venice beyond the fact that they are both covered.

Reminders of love

The Gate Tower of Saint John’s includes an image (right) of Saint John the Evangelist with a poison chalice, drawing the potion in the form of a serpent from the cup before he drank it.

Throughout the summer school, we were constantly reminded of Saint John’s words that God is love. As we climbed the stairs to the Old Library in Sidney Sussex for our closing dinner, I realised we were dining above the ante-chapel, where Cromwell’s head is supposed to be buried. But smiling down benignly on us was a portrait of a former fellow, Bishop John Garnett of Ferns and Clogher.

But then Sidney Sussex had Irish connections from the very beginning: Lady Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex, who gave her name to the college, was the second wife of Thomas Radclyffe, Viscount FitzWalter, who was Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1556 before succeeding his father as the 3rd Earl of Sussex in 1557. Today, the chaplain of Sidney Sussex is the Revd Dr Peter Waddell, is from Newcastle, Co Down. And so the Irish connections live on.

Canon Patrick Comerford is Director of Spiritual Formation, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This essay was first published in the August 2009 edition of the Church Review (Diocese of Dublin and Glendalough).

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