Cambridge: Trinity to Corpus

 

King's College Chapel

Were were in Cambridge to catch the excellent Vermeer exhibition at the Fitzwilliam before it closed. Having to queue for an hour to get in - and then needing a nice lunch - left us with little time to walk, but this shortened version of the walk I had planned was still extremely worthwhile.

We started at the imposing sixteenth century Great Gate of Trinity.

Then across Great Court to Nevile's Court and then through to see Wren's great Library of 1768.

 The two ranges which adjoin it were apparently added on almost immediately, and not much later as one might expect.

We now retraced our steps to exit into Trinity Lane and walked past Clare to enter King's for a quick look at King's College Chapel. Pevsner describes it as "one of the major monuments of English medieval architecture" and explains that the first stone was laid in 1446 and that it was completed in 1515. The dominant impressions are of size, height, light and harmony. The fan vaults are spectacular.

We then walked round the great lawn down to and along by the river and wondered at the incongruity of the Gibbs Building which is at right angles to the Chapel. Why couldn't they at least have used the same colour stone?

Leaving King's through the screen-walled front by William Wilkins (1823), we turned right into King's Parade to quickly reach the extraordinary Grasshopper Clock on the Bene't St corner of Corpus Christi college. I must confess to being unaware of its existence until I was doing some research for this walk.

The blue lights in the two inner circles display the time as hours and minutes (4.22), while the seconds flash rapidly around the outer edge. The pendulum swings, but sometimes pauses alarmingly. The clock is mechanical: the grasshopper escapement mechanism (an eighteenth century invention) converts pendulum motion into rotation. It was conceived and funded by John C Taylor, an old member of the college, as a piece of public art. It is entirely successful. I like the way in which my photo has caught the pink evening light.

Finally, we popped into Corpus to see The Old Court, which Pevsner says gives the best idea of what a 14th century Oxford or Cambridge College was like.

 Conditions: dry, dusk.

Distance: a mile at most.

Rating: four stars.

Reflections

This walk illustrates perfectly that a "walk" doesn't have to cover a great distance or involve great difficulty to be wonderful. It just needs to be undertaken deliberately in an enquiring and attentive way.

Even in places you think you know well, there are wonderful things to see if you go looking for them. Obviously, Cambridge is better endowed than most with wonderful things, but I think this is, if not universally true, certainly a good philosophy.