Cambridge has been an important town since Roman times as it was sited at the first navigable point on River Cam. In the 11th century religious orders began to be established in the town and, in 1209, a group Of religious scholars broke away from Oxford University after academic and College Chapel religious disputes and came here.
Student life dominates the city but it is also a thriving market centre serving a rich agricultural region.
Cambridgeshire is a county in the East of England. It borders Lincolnshire and Norfolk to the north, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the west.
Cambridge is one of Britain’s oldest cities with a history dating back over a thousand years. The city was first documented in writing around 100 AD as various settlements in what was then known as Grantacaestir. It became an important trading centre during Roman times, due to its position at the intersection of two major Roman roads: Ermine Street (now called Watling Street) and Stane Street (now called Kings Highway). After the Romans left Britain in 410 AD, settlement continued under Anglo-Saxon rule.
Featured: Fern Cottage Elsworth, Cambridge
King’s College
Henry VI founded this college in 1441. Work on the chapel — one of the most important examples of late medieval English architecture — began five years later, and took 70 years to complete. Henry himself decided that King’s College it should dominate the city and gave “Coat of Arms specific instructions about its dimensions: 88 m (289 ft) long, 12 m (40 fp wide and 29 m (94 ft) high. The detailed design is thought to have been by master stonemason Reginald Ely, although it was altered in later years.
Cambridge University has 31 colleges the oldest being Peterhouse (1284) and the newest being Robinson (1979). Clustered around the city centre, many of the older colleges have peaceful gardens backing onto the River Cam, which are known as the “Backs”. The layout of the older colleges, as at Oxford, derives from their early connections with religious institutions, although few escaped heavy-handed modification in the Victorian era. The college buildings are generally grouped around squares called courts and offer an unrivalled mix of over 600 years of architecture from the late medieval period through Wren’s masterpieces and up to the present day.
Featured:The Farmhouse, Wansford
Fitzwilliam Museum
One of Britain’s oldest public museums, this massive Classical building has works of exceptional quality and rarity, especially antiquities, ceramics, paintings and manuscripts.
The core of the collection was bequeathed in 1816 by the 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam. Other gifts have since greatly added to the exhibits.
Works by Titian (1488-1576) and the 17th-century Dutch masters, including Hals, Cuyp and Hobbema’s Wooded Landscape (1686), stand out among the paintings. French Impressionist gems include Monet’s Le Printemps (1866) and Renoir’s La Place Clichy (1880), while Picasso’s Stil] Life (1923) is notable among the modern works. Most of the important British artists are represented, from Hogarth in the 18th century through Constable in the 19th to Ben Nicholson in the 20th.
The miniatures include the earliest surviving depiction of Henry VIII. In the same gallery are some dazzling illuminated manuscripts, notably the 15thcentury Metz Pontifical, a French liturgical work.
The impressive Glaisher collection of European earthenware and stoneware includes a unique display of English delftware from the 16th and 17th centuries.
Handel’s bookcase contains folios of his work, and nearby is Keats’s original manuscript for Ode to a Nightingale (1819).
Featured:The Granary, Roxhill Manor Farm
