Plaques and notices in Cambridge

If you walk down Free School Lane you will see this plaque on the wall. It commemorates the Old Cavendish Laboratories. This site is now called the New Museums Site to avoid confusion with the new Cavendish Laboratory in West Cambridge. The Cavendish Laboratory was called after after William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire, who was Chancellor of the University and donated money for the construction of the laboratory. The Cavendish Laboratory has had many famous physicists. As of 2006, 29 Cavendish researchers have won Nobel Prizes. Click here for more about the history of the Cavendish Laboratory.

This plaque is also in Free School Lane. J J Thomson became Cavendish Professor of Physics in 1884. One of his students was Ernest Rutherford, who would later succeed him in the post. Thomson was awarded the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of the electron and for his work on the conduction of electricity in gases.

DNA

During World War II, researchers had shown that the mysterious substance which carries genes from generation to generation was DNA (Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid), which exists within cells. However, no-one knew the structure of DNA or how it did this.

Francis Crick and James Watson were working on this in the Old Cavendish Laboratory, in Free School Lane. They saw a photo of x-ray diffraction of DNA made by Rosalind Franklin at King's College London. This led them to suggest a double helix as the structure of DNA, which also explained how DNA reproduces - the double helix splits into two, and the DNA then rebuilds itself from each half.

Inside the old Cavendish Labs there is a plaque on the wall of Crick and Watson's laboratory.

The Eagle.

Blue plaque on the Eagle.

There are other references to the discovery of DNA in Cambridge. Francis Crick used to live in Portugal Place (just behind the Maypole pub). This golden helix is above the front door. Note that it is a single helix, not a double one!

Outside Cambridge, by the railway line, there is a path celebrating the decoding of the Human Genome in 2003. The stripes are the bases of a specific gene. Click here for more about this path.

This plaque is also inside the Old Cavendish. EDSAC, or Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator, was an early British computer. Its first computer programs calculated a table of squares and a list of prime numbers. It used mercury delay lines for memory, and derated vacuum tubes for logic. Input was via 5-hole punched tape and output was via a teleprinter.

Cambridge continues to be deeply involved in computing. Local firms Sinclair and Acorn made some of the first generally used home computers in Britain. The local science parks have so many IT firms that the area is known as Silicon Fen. A shop, "Computer Repairs and Resales", in Mill Road has this notice in the window. Click for a larger version so you can read it. (The shop recovered the data!)

These shields (dated 1886) are on the corner of Pembroke Street (continuation of Downing Street) and Free School Lane.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) described an inductive methodology for scientific inquiry. He was at Trinity College.

Isaac Newton (1643-1727) made discoveries in optics, specified laws of mechanics and gravity, and invented calculus. He was also at Trinity College.

William Herschel (1738-1822) discovered Uranus, and infrared radiation. I'm not sure if William Herschel has any Cambridge connection. His son John Herschel (1792-1871) was at St John's College, and was a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, and experimental photographer, who also did valuable botanical work, so perhaps it is him who is referred to here.

William Hyde Wollaston (1766-1828) first reported the dark lines in the spectrum of the Sun and discovered the elements palladium and rhodium. He was at Gonville and was at Caius College.

Click for information about these coat of arms: Bacon, Newton, Herschel, Wollaston.

Thomas Hobson was a carrier, delivering mail from Cambridge to London. He was based in the George Hotel on Trumpington Street, now part of St.Catherine's College. He rented horses to students and academic staff of the university. Since he found that his best horses were getting over-worked, he made a rule of strict rotation, saying "That or none" which came to be known as Hobson's choice. Thomas Hobson lived in Chesterton Hall. He was a benefactor of Cambridge. This blue plaque mentions his workhouse, the Spinning House, where the poor were housed and given simple work such as spinning. The plaque is on Hobson House, on St Andrews Street.

Hobson was also involved in a scheme to provide drinking water for Cambridge. Water was brought from Nine Wells, south of Cambridge, to the Market Place. The old fountain in the Market Place was moved to the corner of Lensfield Road and Trumpington Street (see above). South of it is Hobson's Brook, still with water from Nine Wells. North of it is the artificial channels or culverts, on either side of part of Trumpington St. These still have water in them for part of the year, but dry up during summer. The water is now used in the Botanic Gardens and college ponds.

Notice in front of the monument

The 'culverts' in Trumpington Street

Bridge over Hobsons Brook

Despite its unassuming entrance, the Arts Theatre is one of the main theatres in Cambridge, featuring high-quality touring productions and West End shows, as well as local events.

As its blue plaque explains, this theatre was founded by John Maynard Keynes, the famous economist. Keynes was born in Cambridge as well as being part of the university.

There is an open green space to the south of the city centre called Parkers Piece, used for sport as well as general recreation. On one side there is Hobbs Pavilion, now a restaurant, but originally a cricket pavilion.

It is named after Jack Hobbs, a famous cricketer who learned to play cricket on Parks Piece. Cricket is still played on Parkers Piece, and in the photo on the left, you can see a scoreboard (click for a bigger version).

There is a charming weather vane on Hobbs Pavilion, with a cricket theme.

In the middle of Parkers Piece, there is a lamp post called Reality Checkpoint. You can see it scratched on the side. The idea was that this was the dividing point between the university and the city folk. Which group had to check their reality is not mentioned!

Free School Lane is a narrow lane alongside the New Museums Site (or Old Cavendish). It is called after the Free Grammar School which was founded in 1615. This plaque describes how this school was founded by Dr Stephen Perse. The school eventually became the Perse, a fee-paying school. The school has existed on several different sites in the city before its present home on Hills Road.

The Grafton Centre is a shopping mall between Fitzroy Street, Burleigh Street and East Road. There is a footpath along its northern edge, and set into the wall, you can see this sign. It says "This wall and the ground on which it stands belong wholly to the Cambridge Refuge, July 1841. This stone was replaced March 10 1881." The Cambridge Refuge was set up to look after prostitutes, until they went in service as maids etc.

On the corner of Maids Causeway and Fair Street, you can see these strange markings. They mark the boundary of Holy Trinity Parish. Holy Trinity church is in Market Street, near Cambridge market in the city centre.

The almshouses below are in Kings Street, near the Midsummer Common end. There are two plaques on the wall, as below.

This says "Joseph Merrill late of this town, Gentleman, at his Deceafe, in the Year 1805, bequeathed to the Truftees of Storey's Charity Cambridge, the Sum of 1667 Pounds, Stock in the three per Cent Consolidated Bank Annuities. In Trust that they caufe the Dividends arising from the same, to be distributed half yearly, to the poor Inhabitants of the Almshouses."

This says "Thomas Jakenett formerly a Burgefs of this town and Agnes his wife Founded an Almfhoufe in the reign of Edw. the 4th 1469, on the South fide in Gt. St. Mary Church-Yard, which was taken down in confequence of an Act of Parliament being granted for Paving and lighting the town of Cambridge, and was rebuilt in this fpot in the year 1790 at the joint expence of the Univerfity and the Inhabitants of Gt. St. Mary's Parifh."

The main Cambridge war memorial is in Hills Road, at the end of Station Road. The young soldier is marching towards the city centre, back home from the war. But he is looking up Station Road towards the railway station, thinking of his dead friends that he left behind on the battle field. On the other side, you can see the old county coat of arms, supported by Great Bustards.

There is a little square and footpath to Tescos off Newmarket Road. In the square is a war memorial which just says "In remembrance of our fellow workers that fell in the Great War" and "in the Second World War" with the names. Tescos was built on the site of the old gas works, and this is the gas workers memorial.

This blue plaque is on the wall of part of Kings College. Originally there were town houses in front of Kings, including this inn. The White Horse Inn was the meeting place in Cambridge for English Protestant reformers who discussed Lutheran ideas, as early as 1521. These included Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer, Miles Coverdale, Matthew Parker, William Tyndale, Nicholas Shaxton, and John Bale. You can see Latimer's pulpit in St Edwards church.

Gwydir Street is off Mill Road. By the bollards, there is the Gwydir Enterprise centre, and on the wall, there is this Victorian plaque celebrating Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.

Outside Great St Marys

Outside Great St Marys

On Queens Green

On the wall of Great St Marys church, there is this plaque, which says "This disk marks the datum point from which in 1725 William Warren, Fellow of Trinity Hall, began to measure the one mile points along the roads from Cambridge, at which were set up the first true milestones in Britain since Roman times."

Here is one of those milestones. It is on Trumpington Road, at the end of Brooklands Avenue. It says "I mile to Great Saint Maries church Cambridge AD MDCCXXVIII". The year is 1728. This milestone is listed, and the listing says that William Warren set up the milestones "under the will of Dr William Mowse Master of Trinity Hall 1552-3. It is a rectangular stone with inset rounded head and has the arms of Trinity Hall impaling Mowse and a pointing hand." I think that the name Cambridge was removed during WWII to confuse the Germans, and now replaced.

High on the wall of Kettles Yard new building, on Castle Street, there is this notice about an old turnpike road. A turnpike is a road for which a driver pays a toll or a fee for use.

The content of the notice are given to the right (in case you can't read it from the photo). There are two separate signs. The top one ends with an upward pointing arrow, presumably marking the precise end of the road. The bottom one has a faint hand pointing to the right, to Godmanchester, which is near Huntingdon.

There are 8 furlongs to a mile, so the distance is 23.34 kilometres.

GODMANCHESTER
TURNPIKE ROAD ENDS
HERE

To
the Horse-fhoe Corner
GODMANCHESTER
14 miles 4 furlongs

King Street is famous for its pubs, and notorious for the King Street Run, a pub crawl where people try to drink in every pub in the street. Luckily there are less pubs than there used to be.

The Champion of the Thames is one of these pubs. It has this sign on the corner, possibly directed towards the King Street Run. It says "This HOUSE is dedicated towards those splendid FELLOWS who make DRINKING a pleasure, who reach CONTENTMENT before CAPACITY and who, whatever the DRINK, can take it, hold it, enjoy it, and STILL remain GENTLEMEN"

Kings Street is not near Kings Parade by the way. Cambridge enjoys having similar street names for roads in different parts of the city!