Walking To Cambridge With Sidney Chambers

As any viewer of the TV show "Grantchester" will realize, investigative priest Sidney Chambers spends little of his time in the Grantchester vicarage. In the first series (or season, as they say in the United States), he looks forward to strolling along the River Cam, and picnicking with his friend Amanda on Grantchester Common.

He and his Detective friend Geordie Keating have spent their fair share of time walking along the river, and even pursued the occasional criminal through the Grantchester Commons. 

Whether he walks or rides his bike, Sidney Chambers will probably use a bridge when he visits his friend Geordie at the Cambridge police station. In one episode, I believe the two even investigated a murder on Clare Bridge.

In this 800 year old university town, the streets are lined with tall buildings. Sidney and Geordie spend their fair share trekking through these narrow byways, whether they are pursuing suspects or traveling to a murder scene. In series two, Amanda even skulks through these, when she grows bored with marriage to her rich husband, and pilfers items from shops.

But most of all in Cambridge, it's King's Parade that we associate Sidney with. In the first episode, we see him cycling among this popular street, past shops, restaurants, and the city's architectural gem, King's College.

Have Sidney and Geordie investigated a murder in King's College yet? If not, I suspect it's only a matter of time. After all, they've questioned suspects in dorms and offices in other colleges. So if you decide to visit Cambridge, keep a watchful eye out. You might spot Geordie or Sidney hurrying past to investigate a crime, or ponder a fascinating mystery.

Dragon Dave

Visiting Sidney Chambers' Church in Grantchester

Even from the outskirts of Grantchester, the Anglican Church of St. Anthony and Mary appeals. It resides within this sleepy English village, and keeps watch over it, just as its famous vicar Sidney Chambers shepherds its inhabitants. 

Upon arriving, it's easy to imagine Mrs. Maguire hanging out the laundry, or cleaning the vicarage. While the black labrador Dickens plays by her feet, curate Leonard Finch studies his books of religious scholarship. As the one in charge of Grantchester Church, vicar Sidney Chambers should be composing Sunday's sermon, with a glass of whisky at hand, while jazz plays on the gramophone. But most likely, he's out with his friend Detective Inspector Geordie Keating, solving a murder in Grantchester or nearby Cambridge.

In the churchyard, a curious memorial rises above nearby headstones. It's a testament to one family's longing to reside in that glorious mansion that awaits us when this life is over. 

Inside, an alcove beside the choir entrances with its architecture and history. It reminds us of this church's centuries of serving the community, and how it still comforts and guides its congregants today.

But most of all, it's special to just sit in a pew, and gaze up at the podium, beside which Sidney Chambers so often addresses his congregation. His messages of God's unfailing love, acceptance, and forgiveness remind me of Christianity's best aspects. Just as in the TV series based on James Runcie's stories, I feel welcome, included, and inspired. 

Dragon Dave

E. F. Benson on Grantchester & Byron's Pool

Recently, I watched a TV series called "Grantchester." It is based on a series of mysteries written by James Runcie, and set in the real life village of Grantchester, just outside Cambridge, England. The stories take place after World War II, and follow a young priest who helps a police detective solve murders. These beautifully filmed shows depict the verdant beauty of the English countryside, and spark my interest in touring England's second great university town.

In addition to James Runcie's mysteries, the town boasts another famous literary association. Just outside of town lies Byron's Pool, named after Lord George Gordon Byron, a famous English poet, who is supposed to have swum there. Or, according to E. F. Benson in his novel The Babe, because "there is no reason to suppose that Byron was not supremely fond of it." Lord Byron casts a long literary shadow, and characters in fiction are even labeled Byronic heroes if they meet the appropriate qualifications. Authors said to have been strongly influenced by Lord Byron's poetry include Charlotte and Emily Bronte. 

In E. F. Benson's novel, one day the Babe and his friends decide to row a boat up the river Cam, and swim in Byron's Pool. Here's a few passages from their day on the river:

Though the lower river is one of the foulest streams on the face of the earth, the upper river is one of the fairest. It wanders up between fresh green fields, bordered by tall yellow flags, loosestrife, and creamy meadow-sweet, all unconscious of the fate that awaits it from vile man below.

Looking back across a mile of fields you see the pinnacles of King’s rise grey and grave into the sky; and in front, Grantchester, with its old-fashioned garden-cradled houses, presided over by a church tower on the top of which, as a surveyor once remarked, there is a plus sign which is useful as a fixed point, nestles in a green windless hollow.

Among sensuous pleasures, bathing on a hot day stands alone, and Byron’s Pool is in the first flight of bathing places.

In Byron’s Pool the reflective, or what we may call the garden bather is well off. He has clean water deep to the edge, a grassy slope shadowed by trees to dry on, and a boat to take a header from. Even Mr. Stevenson, a precisian in these matters, would allow “that the imagination takes a share in such a cleansing.”

I'm sure a lot has changed in Cambridge and Grantchester since E. F. Benson wrote The Babe in 1897. For example, I've learned that the Grantchester Mill he described burned down in the 1920s. I suspect (I hope!) the lower section of the River Cam has been cleaned up since Benson's day. I don't know if the locals would consider me a garden bather, but Byron's Pool sounds like a nice day to enjoy an afternoon swim. I'd also like to tour the village of Grantchester, which inspired a series of murder mysteries, as well as songs by the musicians in the group Pink Floyd. But I don't think I'll stop inside the church to speak with the vicar. That could prove dangerous.

Dragon Dave