The Eagle is a 17th-century coaching inn on Bene't Street in central Cambridge that is still a working pub. It is where, on 28 February 1953, Francis Crick told the lunchtime crowd that he and James Watson had "discovered the secret of life": the double-helix structure of DNA. In the back bar, the ceiling is covered with names and squadron numbers burned there by Second World War airmen.
The Eagle at a glance
- Where: 8 Bene't Street, opposite the old entrance of Corpus Christi College, a couple of minutes from King's Parade.
- Opened: as a coaching inn in 1667, in a building that goes back to the late 16th and 17th centuries.
- What it is today: a Grade II listed pub owned by Corpus Christi College and run by the Greene King brewery. It is often called the second-oldest pub in Cambridge, after the Pickerel Inn.
- Time needed: 15 minutes to see the plaques and the RAF bar ceiling, longer if you stay for a drink or lunch.
From coaching inn to the secret of life
Corpus Christi College has owned the site for about 500 years: a record of 16 July 1525 notes the gift of a house in the parish of St Bene't, and a lease of 1566 to the innkeeper Andrew Pylkynton calls it the Eagle and Child. The inn opened as a coaching house in 1667, and David Loggan's map of 1688 marks it as the Post House. For almost two centuries coaches left from its yard for London, until the railway took over in the mid-19th century. In the 1940s, airmen from the bases around Cambridge made the back bar their own, and the pub was restored and reopened in 1992 after four years of closure.
The Cavendish Laboratory stood just behind Corpus on Free School Lane, and its scientists often came here for lunch. In 1953 Crick and Watson worked out the double helix there, using X-ray data from King's College London, above all Rosalind Franklin's images. According to Watson's book The Double Helix, Crick walked into the Eagle on 28 February and announced they had found the secret of life. Crick, Watson and Maurice Wilkins shared the Nobel Prize in 1962; Franklin had died in 1958. For years the pub's plaque named only Crick and Watson, and people scratched Franklin's name onto it. In 2023 a new plaque acknowledging her contribution was unveiled.
What to look for
- The RAF bar ceiling: in the back room, airmen from about 1941 onwards wrote their names, squadron numbers and doodles on the ceiling with candle smoke, lighters and lipstick. A former RAF technician, James Chainey, later deciphered and recorded them.
- The DNA plaques: two plaques in the middle room mark the table where Crick and Watson used to have lunch.
- The plaque by the entrance: the 2023 version names Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins alongside Crick and Watson. The original plaque is now in the Whipple Museum of the History of Science.
- The galleried yard: walk through to the courtyard at the back, where a 19th-century wing with an open gallery recalls the days of coaches and horses.
- Eagle's DNA: the pub serves a special ale of that name in memory of the 1953 announcement.
Treasure under the floor
In 1826 two labourers, William Smith and Stephen Woodcock, found a hoard of coins under 9 Bene't Street, part of the inn's plot: nearly 200 gold and more than 3,500 silver coins, none later than the reign of Charles I. Corpus Christi received £192 from their sale. In 1996 an excavation in Eagle Yard turned up a 13th-century well full of cat bones, apparently butchered, perhaps for their fur.
Tips for your visit
- Go mid-afternoon on a weekday if you want to see the RAF bar in peace. At lunchtime and on weekend evenings the pub is packed.
- The RAF bar ceiling is low and dark: let your eyes adjust and look for the squadron numbers among the names. Be considerate of people eating underneath.
- Combine the visit with St Bene't's Church across the lane and the Corpus Clock round the corner.
Nearby
- St Bene't's Church: its Anglo-Saxon tower, from the first half of the 11th century, is often called the oldest building in Cambridge.
- The Corpus Clock: the gold clock on the corner of Corpus Christi's Taylor Library, with a creature that eats time, unveiled by Stephen Hawking in 2008.
- King's College Chapel: the late Gothic chapel on King's Parade, with one of the largest fan-vaulted ceilings in the world.
- The Old Cavendish Laboratory: the entrance on Free School Lane, behind Corpus, where J. J. Thomson discovered the electron in 1897 and the DNA work was done in 1953.
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Facts checked in October 2026.