Sunday, October 12, 2008

More about Churchill

I started attending lectures on Thursday, so things have been a bit hectic lately. I feel like an overwhelmingly large amount of things have happened to me in the past several days, and so it's hard to know where to begin. Each day seems to be full of embarassing questions like, "How does this door work?", new challenges, like riding my bike into town on the left side of the road and hoping I don't get hit by a double-decker bus, and fun information, like finding out about real ale. Real ale contains live yeast, so it will spoil relatively fast if unused. The beer is unfiltered and unpasteurized, and the bartender actually has to pump the tap to pull the ale up, since it's not under vacuum.
So I thought I'd say a little bit more about Churchill College. We are the only Cambridge college which is a national memorial. Apparently for Winston Churchill's 80th birthday, it was decided there would be a national memorial in his honor, which turned into this college. The college has a lot of students studying science as well as a lot of graduate students. Also, the college colors are pink and brown, so the boats that the Churchill rowing team uses for crew are bright pink, which I think is fantastic.
The weather these past few days has turned absolutely beautiful, so I was able to take some photos of the Churchill site.

OK, so this is the Winston Churchill tree, planted by Churchill himself, located in one of the dormitory courtyards. It doesn't seem very tree-like because at some point it fell over, and apparently the groundskeepers work really hard to keep it alive.
This is the slightly forbidding entrance to Churchill College. If you go up those stairs, the Porter's Lodge is on the left.
This is one of the many sculptures around the grounds. I am told people like to climb up on it and occasionally get stuck on the top.
The top of this building is the second highest point in all of Cambridge. It belongs to the Moller center, where people come to have conferences a lot.
Below is the Chapel on Churchill's grounds. Francis Crick (of Watson and Crick) was among the first fellows at Churchill and was vehemently opposed to a chapel being established on the grounds. He was so irritated that he sent Winston Churchill 10 pounds and requested a brothel be opened on the Churchill campus. I read his letter at the Churchill Archive, which goes so far as to specify that a madam should be hired and that she be given a place at formal College dinners.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

That story about Crick is absolutely glorious! I take it there was no follow-through on the brothel idea?

I'm really enjoying your pictures, and it's cool to see shots nearly identical to ones I've taken sandwiched between ones that reveal new and exciting things about Cambridge.

Have they let you go punting yet? Have you started drinking tea at strange intervals in the day? Hurrah for Britishisms.

Katrina said...

No, there was no follow through on the brothel idea. Crick was just trying to make a point. However, since Crick was one of the founding fellows of the college, had he phrased his letter slightly differently the college would have had to establish a brothel, which doubtless would have rather changed the character of the college.