Cambridge is a market town that became one of the world's great university cities. Colleges line the river, and the town green where football rules were written is still a public park. Here are the facts and stories behind it.
10 fun facts about Cambridge
- A university started by runaways: the University of Cambridge traces its beginnings to 1209, when a group of scholars left Oxford after a conflict with the townspeople and settled here.
- Football's rule book was drafted here: in 1848 students who played on Parker's Piece wrote down an early set of football rules. A sculpture on the edge of the green commemorates these Cambridge Rules.
- A park named after a cook: Parker's Piece takes its name from Edward Parker, a cook who held the lease on the land when it was still used for grazing.
- A lamp post with a nickname: the gas lamp where the paths cross in the middle of Parker's Piece was put up in 1893. In the 1960s students started calling it Reality Checkpoint.
- A memorial to a polar tragedy: the Scott Polar Research Institute was founded in 1920 in memory of Captain Robert Falcon Scott and the four men who died with him on the way back from the South Pole. Its building on Lensfield Road, by Herbert Baker, opened in 1934.
- A ceiling like no other: King's College was founded by Henry VI in 1441, and the first stone of its chapel was laid in 1446. The chapel has the largest fan vault in the world.
- A clock that eats time: the Corpus Clock on the corner of Corpus Christi College was unveiled by Stephen Hawking in 2008. A metal creature called the Chronophage crawls over its golden face, and the clock is deliberately irregular, showing the exact time only now and then.
- The secret of life, announced in a pub: on 28 February 1953 Francis Crick walked into The Eagle and, by James Watson's account, told the lunchtime crowd that they had found the secret of life. A plaque by the door marks their discovery of the structure of DNA.
- A bridge with a myth: the wooden Mathematical Bridge at Queens' College was first built in 1749. A popular story says Isaac Newton built it without bolts, but he had died more than 20 years earlier.
- A young city: despite its age, Cambridge only received city status in 1951. Outside the Great Gate of Trinity College, where Newton studied, grows an apple tree said to descend from the one at his family home.
The story of Scott and the race to the Pole
In January 1912 Captain Scott and four companions reached the South Pole, only to find a tent and a Norwegian flag: Roald Amundsen's team had arrived about five weeks earlier, on 14 December 1911. On the return journey all five men died of cold, hunger and exhaustion. A search party found the tent with the bodies of Scott, Edward Wilson and Henry Bowers in November 1912. Frank Debenham, a geologist on Scott's expedition, became the driving force behind a research institute in their memory, and the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge became one of the world's leading centres of polar science.
The Backs and punting, explained
The Backs is the stretch where several colleges, including Queens', King's, Clare, Trinity and St John's, back onto the River Cam with lawns and meadows running down to the water. The best way to see them is from a punt, a flat-bottomed boat pushed along with a long pole. In Cambridge, punters traditionally stand on the flat deck at the back, while in Oxford they usually punt from the other end.
What to eat in Cambridge
- Chelsea bun: sticky, spiral and full of currants. Fitzbillies on Trumpington Street has been baking them since it opened in 1920.
- Cambridge burnt cream: the local name for crème brûlée, a pudding long associated with Trinity College.
- Afternoon tea in Grantchester: walk or punt upriver to the Orchard Tea Garden, where the poet Rupert Brooke lodged, and have scones in deckchairs under the apple trees.
- A pint at The Eagle: besides the DNA plaque, the back room has a ceiling covered in names and squadron numbers written by RAF and American airmen during the Second World War.
Good to know before you go
- Most colleges charge visitors an entry fee and close at times, especially during exam season in May and June.
- Choral Evensong in King's College Chapel and several other college chapels is free and open to everyone during term.
- For a view over the rooftops, climb the tower of Great St Mary's, the university church opposite King's College.
- Ely and its cathedral are a short train ride away and make an easy half-day trip.
Explore Cambridge with World City Trail
Our Cambridge scavenger hunt turns these sights into a game you play on your phone. The route links 10 stops and takes around three hours, with about 35 minutes of walking. Along the way you visit Parker's Piece and the Scott Polar Research Institute.
At each stop you solve a puzzle and hear a short story, at your own pace. You can start whenever you like and play in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish or Dutch.
Play the Cambridge scavenger hunt →
Facts checked in October 2026.