Morning Birdsong: Day 4: Cambridge

For the rest of our trip we headed up (took a bus) to visit our good friends Matt and Vicki Rowley (and their girls Ali & Keira!!). We were all together in a church small group for a number of years while Matt was a grad student at Bethlehem Baptist Seminary. Vicki and I and our friend Shannon Dickson all met once a month at a coffee house to have epic 4-hour Saturday morning discussions about what we were reading, thinking about, working through. The Rowleys moved to Cambridge about a year ago for him to get a PhD in history at Leicester University and to be a study fellow at Cambridge's Tyndale House. Here is a good article explaining what Matt is studying/working on. The girls were still in school, so we basically had two days of double dates going around Cambridge and then Ely with a history guy as a personal guide and so much time for Vicki and I to catch up. It was great to see the girls in the evenings and on our last day Saturday, but having so much grown up time with our friends was wonderful!

Behind Tyndale House...shared garden space

Matt at his desk...

I am pretty sure this is Girton College, Cambridge's first residential women's college, established 1869.

I didn't know there were redwood trees in England. I thought that was an American west-coast thing.

This is the Mathematical Bridge: From Wikipedia: "The Mathematical Bridge is the popular name of a wooden footbridge in the southwest of central Cambridge, United Kingdom. It bridges the River Cam about one hundred feet northwest of Silver Street Bridge and connects two parts of Queens' College. Its official name is simply the Wooden Bridge...

The bridge was designed by William Etheridge, and built by James Essex in 1749. It has been rebuilt on two occasions, in 1866 and in 1905, but has kept the same overall design. Although it appears to be an arch, it is composed entirely of straight timbers built to an unusually sophisticated engineering design, hence the name."

The myth associated with this bridge is as thus: (Also from wikipedia, originally told to me by Matt) "A popular fable is that the bridge was designed and built by Sir Isaac Newton without the use of nuts or bolts. Various stories relate how at some point in the past either students or fellows of the University attempted to take the bridge apart and put it back together, but were unable to work out how to hold the structure together, and were obliged to resort to adding nuts and bolts. In reality, bolts or the equivalent are an inherent part of the design. When it was first built, iron spikes were driven into the joints from the outer side, where they could not be seen from the inside of the parapets, explaining why bolts were thought to be an addition to the original. Newton cannot have been directly involved since he died in 1727, twenty-two years before the bridge was constructed."

(Photo by Matt)

A door built for Vicki...

On most of the pulpits...

St. John's College

Statue of William Wilberforce, the great English social reformer and evangelical Christian. Wikipedia has a really excellent summary article about his life -- worth reading if you don't know anything about this fellow. Wilberforce was a student in St. John's College from 1776-1788.

Unusual funeral statuary reminding us that however the person is remembered in fancy stautes, their body rots below the earth like everyone else.

The Bridge of Sighs in St. John's College

The Eagle Pub where Watson and Crick, who were working at Cavendish Labs at the time, announced their solution to DNA structure: The Double-Helix.

Also, because I have had endless battles with this particular post...below is the Round Church (officially the Church of the Holy Sepulchre); Built in 1130, inspired by the rotunda Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

Below these photos are pictures from an amazing candy shop across the street...Hardy's Original Sweetshop.s

For some reason, this post will not allow me to type anywhere but here without deleting huge sections of photos, I am so sorry. Below the sweetshop and a medieval-era building in town, there are photos of Sidney Sussex College -- established as a Protestant College. Oliver Cromwell was one of the first students there. His head is said to be buried below the college's ante-chapel.

The stained glass windows in the Sidney Sussex College are of these men: 1. John Smith and William Law; 2. Benjamin Whichcote and Peter Sterry; 3. John Colet and William Tyndale; 4. Origenes and ??; 5. Anselm and Augustine; 6. Thomas Cranmer and John Fisher; 7. John Harvard and Lawrence Chaderton; 8. William Sancroft and William Bedell.

(Photo from the blog Another Header)

The last thing we did in Cambrdige was go to the Evensong service at King's College Chapel. No photos were allowed inside, so I took these from the internet. The service was beautiful. Liturgy with much congregational response. The men and boys choir with an organ was our music. It was a traditional Church of England service with communion. I really, really loved this experience. Brad and I both.