Cambridge
Home to one of the world’s most prestigious Universities, Cambridge is a fabulous town that for its scenic greenery and architectural splendour just about pips its fierce rival, Oxford .
Cambridge started out as a Roman fort on the first navigable point on the river Cam, later it was a rural Saxon backwater and it only really took off in the 12th Century. Following academic and religious disputes and even riots at Oxford University a group of religious scholars broke away to form a new centre of learning at Cambridge.
The first college, Peterhouse, was founded in 1284 and with it the collegiate system unique to Oxford and Cambridge where the Tutors and Students live together in their colleges, similar to the system of a monastic order. By 1352 there were seven more colleges and now there are 31 colleges, which though autonomous bodies are part of Cambridge University, which undertakes the teaching, confers the degrees and boasts over 60 Nobel Prize winners.
A tense rivalry exists between Cambridge University and Oxford University who between them share some of the greatest academic names in British History, but when it comes to the towns, Cambridge comes out on top. Cambridge is simply more pleasing to the eye, an attractive town of cloistered college quads surrounded by noble medieval buildings, of gentle lawns and willow trees lining the River Cam, which flows through the centre of the town.
Visitors to Cambridge are usually welcome to walk around the college courts and visit the chapels but at the discretion of the College and you will find them shut during examination times of mid-April to late June. The most impressive of the Colleges are St John’s College with its splendid Tudor and Jacobean architecture and the Venetian Bridge of Sighs, Trinity College, the largest, built in the 16th Century and King’s College, adjacent to King’s College Chapel , the most single beautiful architectural spectacle in the town. A lesser-known gem is Emmanuel College, where John Harvard studied before immigrating to the US and established the equally prestigious establishment of Harvard, Emmanuel also boasts a Chapel designed by Christopher Wren.
No visit to Cambridge would be complete without a punt up the River Cam along the ‘Backs’ as the river passes behind the college quads.
