|
| |
|
cambridge |
| |
|
|
|
On the whole, CAMBRIDGE is a much quieter and more secluded place
than Oxford, though for the visitor what really sets it apart from its
scholarly rival is "the Backs" - the green swathe of land that straddles
the languid River Cam, providing exquisite views over the backs of the
old colleges. At the front, the handsome facades of these same colleges
dominate the layout of the town centre, lining up along the main streets.
Most of the older colleges date back to the late thirteenth and early
fourteenth centuries and are designed to a similar plan with the main
gate leading through to a series of "courts", typically a carefully
manicured slab of lawn surrounded on all four sides by college
residences or offices. Many of the buildings are extraordinarily
beautiful, but the most famous is King's College , whose magnificent
King's College Chapel is one of the great statements of late Gothic
architecture. There are thirty-one university colleges in total, each an
independent, self-governing body, proud of its achievements and
attracting - for the most part at least - a close loyalty from its
students, amongst whom privately educated boys remain hopelessly over-represented
despite decades of perfectly adequate state education.
Tradition has it that Cambridge was founded in the late 1220s by
scholastic refugees from Oxford, who fled the town after one of their
number was lynched by hostile townsfolk - though the first proper
college wasn't founded until 1271. Rivalry has existed between the two
institutions ever since - epitomized by the annual Boat Race on the
River Thames - while internal tensions between "town and gown" have
inevitably plagued a place where the university has long tended to
control local life.
During the nineteenth century, the university finally lost its ancient
privileges over the town, which was expanding rapidly thanks to the
arrival of the railway. The university expanded too, with the number of
students increasing dramatically following the broadening of the
curriculum to include new subjects such as natural science and history.
More recently, change has been much slower in coming to the university,
particularly when it comes to equality of the sexes . The first two
women's colleges were founded in the 1870s, but it was only in 1947 that
women were actually awarded degrees and one or two colleges held out
against accepting women students until the 1980s. In the meantime, the
city and university had been acquiring a reputation as a high-tech
centre of excellence, what locals refer to half-seriously as "Silicon
Fen". Cambridge has always been in the vanguard of scientific research -
its alumni have garnered no less than ninety Nobel prizes - and it has
now become a major international player in the lucrative electronic
communications industry.
Cambridge is an extremely compact place, and you can walk round the
centre, visiting the most interesting colleges, in an afternoon. A more
thorough exploration, covering more of the colleges, a visit to the fine
art of the Fitzwilliam Museum and a leisurely afternoon on a punt , will
however take at least a couple of days - maybe more. If possible you
should avoid coming in high summer, when the students are replaced by
hordes of sightseers and posses of foreign-language students, though you
can still miss the crowds by getting up early - the tourists only start
to appear in numbers from around 10.30am. Faced with such crowds, the
more popular colleges have restricted their opening times and several
have introduced admission charges. Bear in mind, too, that during the
exam period (late April to early June), most colleges close their doors
to the public at least some of the time.
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
