Patrick Comerford
I spent a day in Cambridge earlier this week, meeting a friend from Ireland who has been staying in Saint John’s College and taking a short top-up course in theology organised by the Diocese of Ely.
Cambridge is always beautiful in the sunshine, even if it is suffering under the crush of over-tourism. The weight of tourism means many colleges have signs saying they are closed to visitors, even though this is the height of the tourist season and the pressures of exams and graduations have passed.
Still, it was good to introduce my friend to the Cambridge that I have known so well for almost 20 years and still feel a part of.
We met at the train station, walked along Station Road and Hills Road back into the centre of Cambridge and stopped for a long coffee and the opportunity to catch up on old times before beginning our walk around Cambridge in earnest.
We had dropped into Our Lady and the English Martyrs Church, and had glimpses of Downing and Emmanuel, of Parker’s Piece and of Saint Andrew’s Baptist Church. But our first real stopping point was Christ’s College, where the castle-like gatehouse on Saint Andrew’s Street has had its vibrant colours and paintwork repainted in a project that was completed in 2018.
The statue of the college founder, Lady Margaret Beaufort, has been spruced up too, although the tourists peering into First Court were more image in the plaque with an image of Charles Darwin, a former undergraduate. I tried to explain how I once, in vain, searched for the supposed links between Darwin and the Comberford family, but recalled how it is said that even before the chapel was consecrated Lady Margaret heard Mass from a gallery now represented by a window in the south wall of the chapel, although the chapel was not formally consecrated until a year after her death.
I preached in the chapel and was a visiting lecturer in Christ’s College in 2009, and I stayed there again the following year before taking part in the summer school at Sidney Sussex College organised by the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies.
From Christ’s College, we strolled along Petty Curry into Market Square, then along Peas Hill and into Saint Edward’s Passage to see David’s Bookshop, the most charming bookshop in England, and Saint Edward’s Church where they recently marked the 500th anniversary of the sermon by Robert Barnes at midnight mass on Christmas Eve 1525 that is said to have sparked the Reformation in England.
On King’s Parade we gave the tourist shops a healthy miss and instead looked at the Senate House, Great Saint Mary’s, the University Church, and Gonville and Gaius College, turning into Senate House Passage, and passing Trinity Hall and Clare College, where I have also stayed, to visit King’s College.
There we spent some time admiring King’s Chapel, and, although it thronged with tourists there were quiet places to sit and reflect, think and pray, and to talk quietly.
We strolled through Back Lawn, filled with wild flowers and still without its summer mowing, and walked along the Backs and the banks of the Cam, crossing King’s College Bridge to enjoy views of the punters on the river – some with copious supplies of Pimm’s – and to catch a glimpse of Clare Bridge, where one of the 14 decorative stone balls is missing a neatly sliced wedge or segment.
Cambridge lore says the builder cut out the wedge in a pay dispute or to avoid taxes, but the true explanation is probably that it is a weathered repair.
We walked back through Front Court onto King’s Parade, where we watched the Corpus Clock, unveiled by Stephen Hawking, where the Chronophage or the Grasshopper clock is eating up time.
We had to step into the Eagle, where Crick and Watson announced in 1953 announced they had discovered the ‘Secret of Life’ or the double helix structure of DNA, and then visited Saint Bene’t’s Church which, for the years I was following courses with IOCS at Sidney Sussex College, was almost like a parish church for me.
We were soon back on Margaret Street, and we skipped through Market Passage with its associations with Oliver Cromwell, to see Sidney Sussex College, where lingering wisteria is still trailing over the wall onto Sidney Street. Walking through Sussex Street and the commercial developments owned by Sidney Sussex, we ended up the corner of King Street and Hobson Street, and shared stories of the ways in life we have often been confronted a ‘Hobson’s Choice’ – take it or leave it.
A long and lengthy late lunch in King Street Brewhouse provided more opportunities to catch up on life in Ireland, England and further life, to talk about church life, teaching, theology, journalism and families, and compared notes about working visits to and time in different parts of Europe and Africa.
With Sidney Sussex to our left, we cut along Malcolm Street to Westcott House, where we compared theological education in Ireland and England, had a glimpse of All Saints’ Church, and crossed Jesus Lane to a warm welcome in Jesus College.
On Jesus Lane, we looked at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies and Wesley House, both now within the ambit of Jesus College, and walked on past Little Trinity, the ADC Theatre, home of the the Cambridge Footlights, whose members came to dominate British comedy in the 1970s, the 1980s, and beyond,and we peered into the former Pitt Club, now an Italian restaurant.
We squeezed our way along Bridge Street, with the Round Church, the side of Saint John’s College and Saint Clement’s, where we turned in to picturesque Portugal Place, where returning Jews first settled in Cambridge in the 17th century. We ended up back at the Cam and Magdalene Bridge, by Magdalene College. Our time had run out, and we never even considered the offers of taking a short journey on a punt on the Cam.
Cambridge had been beautiful in this July sunshine. In the throngs of tourists, I did not see myself as a tourist or visitor, even for a moment, but felt I was back in the Cambridge I have known and that has been part of me for almost 20 years.
I had shown my friend my Cambridge and the Cambridge that John Betjeman describes as ‘The white of windy Cambridge courts, the cobbles brown and dry’, where choirs and organs join to ‘praise Eternity contained in Time and coloured glass.’ Walking back to catch a train home at the end of my Odyssey in Cambridge and feeling wistful, I could not but have another look at Sidney Sussex College and its glorious wisteria.
I should get back more often. And I should write more about those colleges, chapels and the Cam in the days to come.
