Cambridge and Oxford: two of the most famous universities in the world and so much in a world of their own that they are collectively referred to as "Oxbridge".
Living in one, it was inevitable that eventually I would have to visit the other. So one spare Saturday back in June, I hopped on a bus for the three hour journey across the southern English flatlands.
I was not disappointed. Oxford claims to be older, but Cambridge tells its story more freely: its colleges are mostly free to enter during the day (Oxfords' charge up to £6 - that's $A15 - a pop) and tales are written on walls, leaflets, storyboards,. My Let's Go guide provided the rest.
What struck me was the number of colleges founded by women. Clare College was founded by Elizabeth de Clare, descended of my hero, William Marshall. St John's was founded by Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII.
Clare College
St John's College, and Margaret Beaufort's statue
At the front of Trinity College(below) , founded by Henry VIII, grows an apple tree said to have been descended from the one that dropped an apple on on Isaac Newton's head, inspiring his treatises on a weird new concept, called 'gravity'. 'Let's Go' says the college is Britain's third largest landowner, after the Queen and the Church, and that it's possible to walk from Cambridge to Oxford without stepping off Trinity land.
Lording over them all, though, is Kings college, featuring the university's only fountain (somebody famous used to bathe nude in it - I forget who) and a massive chapel that features' Reuben's Adoration of the Magi. How could anyne fail to be inspired reading for a degree in such a place?
Behind the main college buildings, grassy lawns slope down to the river Cam, named since saxon times and source of the town's name. The Cam was littered with punters, launching themselves beneath the Bridge of Sighs (every self respecting town has one, built in the Venetian style - Cambridge's even spans over water, unlike the one in Oxford).
I confess I had gone to Cambridge secretly hoping that my adopted home town would prove itself superior in every way. Parochial? I guess I must be.
Cambridge's oldest building - a 12thC Norman church
The first thing that struck me, though, was that Cambridge somehow felt more open and spacious, and therefore bigger. As I wandered through, I realised how subtle differences made a big difference. Where Oxford's colleges have thick walls, or even whole rooms, facing onto the street, Cambridge's stone walls feature openings of various shapes, providing a glimpse of the wide lawns and quads beyond. Cambridge streets are more likely to be paved with stone instead of asphalt, making them lighter in colour and less at odds with their surroundings. Several market squares are bordered in traditional buildings - so far removed from Oxford's Gloucester Green or Frideswide Square (both ugly and unco-ordinated). Even their modern buildings - shops and the like - are made in complementary styles, colours and finishes, so that in 3 hours of wandering I saw none of the eyesore 1960s council buildings or concrete carparks that caused Bill Bryson to rail against people calling Oxford one of England's beautiful cities.
He's right - my home town's beauty is patchy. Anthony's view, that Oxford 'always looks like it's trying to keep everyone else out'. There's even less litter in Cambridge. Oxford council, expect a barrage of mail on dud planning decisions very soon...
Oxford still has much to crow about: Cambridge may be prettier, grander even, but Oxford feels more lived in and more ethnically and socially diverse. If Cambridge has a seedy, arty, musical underbelly, she didn't show it to me that day.
Best of all, as my bus wound its way back across the heartland, arriving in Oxford felt like coming home.
No comments:
Post a Comment