Welcome to the
Cambridgeshire
Hereward the Wake was a legendary figure in English history, out of the same heroic mould as Robin Hood, but a figure based firmly *in fact rather than fancy. He was a Saxon noble at the time of the occupation of England by William the Conqueror and he resolved to continue the fight against the Normans. He was successful 'in this for a considerable time, greatly aided by the fact that he took refuge, with his followers, in the Fen country, on the Isle of Ely. The area was almost inaccessible, consisting largely of treacherous marshes, and it is doubtful if any army could ever have reached him, had he not been betrayed by monks. Through the centuries that followed work was carried out on the draining of the Fens but it was not until the eighteenth century that the Isle of Ely ceased to be an island. Dominating the Fen country stands the lovely Ely Cathedral, with its unique and magnificent octagonal lantern.
There is no doubt that the two most famous centers of scholarship in England are Oxford and Cambridge. There are, obviously, great similarities between the two since the foundation of their fame as university cities was of a similar time and many of the fine buildings would be equally at home in either setting. The whole of Cambridgeshire is an area of open spaces and this feeling of space is also true of Cambridge. It is a city that requires time to be spent *in it if it is to be fully explored and appreciated, and it amply repays the visitor who wanders along the banks of its river, the Cam, with sights of rare beauty and fascination.
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The Bridge of Sighs, built in the style of the famous bridge of the same name in Venice, seems not at all out of place here, in this very English city, where punts, instead of Gondolas, glide peacefully along the waters of the river that it crosses. Famous colleges with famous names, many of them at least partially open to the public; beautiful churches and chapels, all with long histories and interesting stories to tell; quaint little bookshops, and the broad green lawns of the Backs are but a small sample of the many delights that this lovely city has to offer.
Not everyone finds poetry suited to their particular taste in literature. There can be very few, however, who are not familiar with at least some of the words if not the name of one poet who achieved fame and national popularity, largely because of his 'War Sonnets' written during the First World War The poet was, of course, Rupert Brooke, who spent part of his all too short life in the old vicarage at Grantchester and wrote of the village, and his county of Cambridgeshire, with great feeling. His poem 'The Old Vicarage, Grantchester' was written in a cafe *in Berlin in 1912, and it epitomizes the feeling that many Englishmen abroad have experienced when thinking about the land that is their home.
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