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Night Climbers to the Four


This week saw a fair amount of activity by Cambridge's favourite secret club. Santa hats have been appearing on various parts of the University's architecture - most notably on all four pinnacles of King's College Chapel as pictured (pic thanks to avaragado, click through for more and follow him on Twitter.) The Santa hat deluge is a pretty regular occurrence at this time of year; followers of this column will know that the Night Climbers have been a part of Cambridge subculture for over a hundred years definitely, and probably a lot longer (on Gunning's Balcony, St John's College, there's an inscription carved by pen-knife: PETRUS GUNNING ELIENSIS, HUJUS COLL : ALUMNUS Feb: 19th, 1734).

Those interested can read a free pdf on the history of Night Climbing below (and on the Oleander website.)

Into the Gloaming...


One hundred and nine years ago, the sun was setting on this exact same scene. Darkness followed and shortly thereafter shapes began moving; stealthy, lithe, shadow-blending convolutions of night. Using chimneys and pipes the ascent of these ancient buildings was undertaken - as presumably it had been for hundreds of years before. But this year, notes were taken - and the first record of roof-climbing was produced. The Roof-Climber's Guide to Trinity sold out on publication and has been out of print ever since. It was the first of several titles quietly published - anonymously, of course - over the next seventy years; titles which are now being republished. A history of Roof and Night Climbing in Cambridge is available as a free download here and the books themselves are available here too.

Secret History of Cambridge - Free Download

Want to learn a little Cambridge history that's not in the regular guidebooks? Night Climbing has been a part of Cambridge's alter-ego for hundreds of years probably. An activity practised far away from the eyes of tourists, university authorities and of course, the police. Over a hundred years ago the first account of this subversive, nocturnal activity appeared, anonymously, in print.



Since then, a select few titles have been authored, under pseudonyms, chronicling the exploits of these stegophilic miscreants. Many of whom went on to become figures of public import and influence. Read the history of this exclusive club - as told by Richard Williams, the now-unveiled author of the 1960, 3rd Edition of the Night Climber's Guide to Trinity. Click on the pic or here to go to the free download - and enjoy!

It's taken a while but it's here now!

Local publisher Oleander Press has reported the following great news for all lovers of Cambridge, past and present, ground-based or not:

The original night-climbing text is now in stock. The Roof-Climber's Guide to Trinity, written in 1900 by Geoffrey Winthrop-Young and the inspiration for Whipplesnaith's Night Climbers of Cambridge is here, available once more. We're very excited to see it - eventually - back in print!!


Check out a review written on publication in 1900 over here.

Read more about it on the blog and get your own copy here. (And check out the Whipplesnaith video)

Zuleika in Peterhouse

"They did wonderful things for me in Oxford, but in retrospect I cannot help feeling that they overdid them. The art of dying for me ceased, I fear, to be an art. It degenerated into a stampede."


A delightful corner of Peterhouse, the oldest college in Cambridge, founded in 1284. Continuing our theme of lost literary history, here's a recent reprint of a 1941 satire Zuleika in Cambridge in which the aforementioned young lady arrives in our fair city to the consternation of University authorities after her fatal tour of Oxford... During the visit she attends a party here in Peterhouse but many other parts of the locale are recognisable. Written by the then Master of Pembroke (just across the road actually), this excellent novella was a hilarious tribute to Max Beerbohm who, 30 years earlier, had given us the eponymous Zuleika Dobson, a shockinly funny novel, which I'm sure many of us will have read...

Full details here of course.

Really want to know about Cambridge?

If so, grab these; local publisher Oleander Press is republishing a couple of out-of-print local titles this month, both with close ties to horror master MR James:


Tedious is a collection of spooky stories written in 1919 by the then Master of Jesus College, Arthur Gray, under the pseudonym Ingulphus and mainly set in the college and local area over the preceeding 500 years. Full details here.


And Stoneground is another collection by EG Swain who had been Chaplain of King's College. Set on the edge of the Fens, just up the road, they are very entertaining and atmospheric tales of the supranatural. Get details here.

For the climber who "seeks new sensations on the artificial erections of man."

I don't post often on here anymore but people still come by so I thought I'd let you know of a bit of a red letter day approaching:



It's taken a while but we're within a couple of weeks of unleashing the Holy Grail of night climbing. This is the first recognised literature concerning this elite sport and is the first instalment of the exclusive literary genre documenting it. There are less than 10 copies left in the world of this 109 year-old treasure, and I'm delighted to bring this stegophilic standard-bearer back to life. Amazingly I've found a contemporary review:

'...the stegophilist will find a guide-book so lucid and complete as to compare with such classics as Ball's Alpine Guide and Haskett-Smith's Climbing in the British Isles. - Full contemporary review

We've worked from Geoffrey Winthrop-Young's original copy - now held in the Wren Library at Trinity:


Many will notice that the picture used comes from Whipplesnaith. There are three editions of the Trinity guide - this one, a 2nd edition in 1930 and a final one in 1960. There was also a Roof-Climber's Guide to St John's. Each of these is being reproduced by Oleander in the near future and each sports a similar livery and Whipplesnaith pic. I think they look great - and hopefully so will you.

This reproduction contains the full text (including corrections by GW-Y) and two appendices of transcribed notes by the author; one set from 1902 and the other from 1948. Both shed amusing and informative light on the creation of the book, little known facts (the truth about Byron climbing the Wren Library for example) and details of his fellow climbers at the time. Read more about it over at Oleander; and obviously, the whole Night Climbers story is available on its blog.

You are HERE:



Frequently spotted around Cambridge: a gaggle of camera-toting tourists huddled over these kinda-cool relief maps of the city centre trying to work out how to get from where they are (in this case under Great St Mary's tower in the centre) to their favourite coffee shop. Astonishingly (the epidemically-omnipresent) Starbucks has not been ringed in dayglo-orange by the council on this map despite their best efforts in cookie-cutter-corporate-branding of the city centre. These relief maps are great reproductions though and very realistic - the most recognisable bits being King's College chapel top right and Trinity College Great Court (a la the race in Chariots of Fire, although the film actually used Eton College school) in the foreground. The only innacuracy as far as I can tell is that, unlike the actual city centre buildings, this isn't covered in pigeon s***.

Of course, the true beauty of this map is that, whilst any photoblogger can snap their city's best bits, only a really lazy one can give you the whole city centre, to scale, in one shot. Voila!

Tickets


The Arts Picturehouse bar - great place to chill and read or work - and of course, the cinema has the best independent film line-up in the area.