One highlight of Cambridge is of course the beautiful university buildings. They are the home of students first and foremost so visits during term time are obviously quite restricted. Some of the colleges charge for tours and some have set up areas to allow you to take photos for free, which is the case with Corpus Christi which had a little area near the entrance set up for tourists to take photos.
The Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences is a free museum right next to the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. It was founded in 1728 after a Dr. John Woodward bequeathed his collection of almost 10,000 fossils, shells and archaeological artefacts to the University of Cambridge; Adam Sedgwick expanded on the collection and so when he died the museum was set up in his honour. The museum isn’t very large but is chock full of specims everywhere you look. The entrance (those with mobility issues can access a lift) has some lovely stairs decorated with these animals that make a nice introduction to the museum.
If you’re looking for a bit of greenery in Cambridge you can look no further than the Backs and Sheep’s Green and Coe Fen Nature Reserves. It can be found along the west bank of the River Cam and steps away from the busier streets of the city.
One Sunday last month it was a surprisingly sunny day and I decided to venture out to Colwick Woods. I’d realised while looking at new to me green spaces in Nottingham that although I’ve been to Colwick Country Park a number of times I’d never been to the nearby woods. 50 hectares large it is an ancient woodland that has been around since at least the early 1600s and even possibly longer as well as part of it being farmland that was abandoned in the 1950s.
I was a bit on the fence about visiting the museum at first – I feel like museums of anthropology in particular have a lot of caveats attached to their collections related to colonisation and theft. To be fair to the museum they are aware of this themselves with the below sign greeting visitors in the entrance and their website stating they were one of the first museums to return items to their country of origin in 1961. The latest items to be returned when I visited were some Aboriginal spears stolen by James Cook and his men from Australia in 1770.
During my trip to Cambridge I visited three museums in one afternoon. It was hard to narrow down which ones to visit but in the end I picked ones based on general proximity to each other. It also helped that they were all free. The first one I visited was the Whipple Museum named for Robert Whipple who gifted his collection of scientific instruments to Cambridge University in 1944.
I stumbled across St Edward’s Church while going on an early walk around the city; as best I could tell the church wasn’t actually open to go inside at the time. The church is named for Edward the Martyr a 10th century king of England and half-brother of his successor, Aethelred the Unready. Supposedly Edward, who became king in 975 when he was just 13 was murdered by his step-mother in favour of Aethelread and as such became a martyr.
The Corpus Clock is one of Cambridge’s most famous sites. Designed by John C. Taylor and inaugurated by Stephen Hawking in 2008 it is a clock with no hands with three circles of dots to show the hour, minute and second. Unfortunately when I was there last March someone (I believe still unidentified) had attacked the clock with a hammer, for reasons unknown. Thankfully it’s protected by a screen so no damage was done to the actual clock but it did mean that I didn’t get to see it working, nor see the large grasshopper that sits atop it. It has now been restored and is working once again. You can see what it usually looks like and see it in motion here.
This rather unprepossessing house at 22 Fitzwilliam Street is where Charles Darwin lived from 16th December to March 1837, after he returned from his voyage on the Beagle. It was during this time that he started writing up his notes and organising his specimens.
As part of my not at all regular exploration of Nottingham’s green spaces, on Monday I headed with my Dad to Bulwell Hall Park, five miles to the north of Nottingham city centre. I hadn’t even known the place existed and my dad wanted to show me some places he went with my mum when they were first engaged. We drove there and parked in what was described as the overflow car park [free] just short of the track that leads to the car park for the golf course, which I also hadn’t realised was there. I actually worked in Bulwell many years ago but never really had time to explore the area. I spotted a bus stop for the No. 70 bus very close by to the entrance which would be the best way of getting there on public transport.
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