Oxbridge

We took a trip to Cambridge last weekend, and survived to tell the tale (here is my version, anyway). In some circles, generally those concentric around Oxford, Cambridge is referred to simply as "the other place." Meanwhile, the more judicious term "Oxbridge" (coined by W. Thackeray, in Pendennis) has put the stamp on their status together as the - at least historical - duopoly of elite (and yes, elitist) British higher education. It's well to note, however, that one never hears mention of Camford. Oxford is the elder as a place of learning, after all, some of its scholars having founded the university in the other place after fleeing townies up in arms over a murder in 1209. But further into the treacherous waters of this rivalry I'll tread no further.

Our trip between this place and the other was itself a bit treacherous. I'll admit that I was a bit distracted for most of our thrill ride, piloting our seventeen-seat van along the erratic line of highways, bi-ways and single-track country lanes that led us from the eastern edges of the hilly Cotswolds down into the flat Fens. It might have been idyllic, but our route cut at frequent intervals and odd angles across all the larger, humming roads which all lead south into London. Now, a round-about is demonstrably more efficient and less dangerous than a stop light, but knowing that hardly stopped me from cursing them as I went hurtling wearily from one to the next at an all-too-hectic pace in the looking-glass world that is driving in Britain.

At last, however, we arrived at Ely, a bit northeast of Cambridge, where we headed first to take in the Stained Glass Museum, within the Ely Cathedral. The Cathedral itself is known as the "ship of the Fens," as it looms majestically over the farmlands surrounding Ely and can be seen riding along the wide horizon for miles in any direction. Once inside, one discovers that it serves the fenlanders not only as a glorious place of worship, but as a living public space. Last weekend's harvest festival, including sheep stalls and crosses made of potatoes seemed to feel perfectly at home there in the aisles of the Cathedral nave. The image at left pictures the Cathedral interior, from the choir through the screen to the nave, between and above which is the Ely Octagon, i.e. the lantern over the transept in the upper half of the picture. Here I should direct everyone to links to other records of our trip, including some beautiful shots of Ely on Heath Iverson's blog about his experiences in Oxford, and a set of photos (of Ely and Oxford) by Kate Wilhelmi. It was mainly Kate we were taking to the Stained Glass museum, as she is taking a tutorial this term with a member of the British Society of Master Glass Painters on the history and practice of the art.

Here are a few more shots of interior details,










one of the painting in the lantern







two more of the richly imaginative carving in the choir, including, on the left, the underside of a misericord (a mercy seat for legs tired of standing for hours in service)

















and one of the group outside the Cathedral with the lantern exterior perched in the far distance.






Next stop Magdalene College, Cambridge, where everyone piled out of the newly dubbed "magic bus" to make it into the free public hour at the Library of Samuel Pepys, a Secretary of the Admiralty under James II and diarist who left his books, arranged to ring a single room at Magdalene by order of size, from his massive atlases of the then-discovered world to chapbooks full of "merriment" he bought for a penny quay-side. (Magdalene, by the way, is pronounced "mawdlehn"; it's a relief that even the British roll their eyes at all the syllables they drop from their place names.)

Here's part of the crowd milling around in front of the Library (by Lance Dyke, another student, studying Lute and Voice this term). I found a parking spot for our magic bus (outside the former digs of a friend who I used to visit here often, back in the day) while the others made their way across the bridge over the River Cam just outside Magdalene, into city center. I rejoined everyone as they refreshed themselves at the Bath House on Benet Street near city center. Down Benet Street where it joins the pedestrian King's Parade perches the Corpus Clock, the newest addition to the mingled majesties at the heart of old Cambridge. I was unveiled a month ago (September 19) by Stephen Hawking, himself the latest in a line of cosmos-defining minds that have made their homes in Cambridge over the centuries. Isaac Newton was another you may have heard of. In general, Cambridge is renowned for its scientific studies, and Oxford for its humanities (which term I use to include theology, by the way, which was almost the only subject one studied for in either place for the first few centuries of their existence).

At any rate, it is a little hard to imagine the Corpus Clock (left) in Oxford. The device, pictured here, is run entirely mechanically (though it is wound by an electric motor). It has no hands, but displays lights round the circumference to indicate the time. The grasshopper/cricket/locust at the top is the escapement device, which regulates the transmission of the pendulum's motion into the regular movement of the clock's hands. The beast's name is Chronophage, or "time eater." The ensemble commemorates one John Harrison, the long-suffering inventor of the grasshopper escapement and maker of a clock reliable enough to help solve the "longitude" problem (of knowing how far one had sailed from Britain in an east-west direction in the days when one had only the heavenly bodies to reckon by). Harrison's story is a fascinating one for anyone interested in the history of science and its politics.

Toward evening, we crossed the busy pedestrian King's Parade and in under the King's College Gate to take in the Evensong service at Chapel (whence the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is broadcast worldwide every Christmas Eve). It's an aetherial place, somehow too grand for snapshooting. So, while the choir filled the long, soaring nave with Palestrina's setting for Psalm 81 and the sun set through the east window in a blaze of golds, reds and blues, I just took it in. Even Rubens' Adoration of the Magi on the altar just to our left was hard put to hold its Baroque-own within the majestic early-Reformation sensorium that is King's Chapel in its living glory. Anyway, if you want to experience this masterpiece of sight, sound and space, you'll just have to go yourselves. Short of that, here's a shot Kate took just after the service ended from just outside the chapel door of the waxing moon peeking into the front quad of King's College.














Finally, we intended to go punting after services, but got to the Granta (a boathouse and pub on the Cam River that runs right through the city's center) just as the boats were being tied up for the night. So, instead, we took a refreshing break while we sat along the river, and I made a picture of the swans below the Granta's patio with Kate's camera:

I won't go into detail on the ride back. Suffice to say it wasn't as peaceful as my photo, but we did see a bit more of nighttime rural England than we'd intended to. But I dare say we fared better on our own than we would have on the nightly bus that ferries students each way across Oxbridge. There's a rivalry, allright, but it doesn't stop them from being quite merry on the bus together (we hear) across the sixty or so miles that separates them (as the crow flies, which is altogether really the best way to go, I think.)