Fundraising

Fifty Shades of Cambridge

To help raise some much-needed funds for CAMS Music Trust, we have created ’50 Shades of Cambridge’ – an attractive and witty 14-card set of 6x4ins postcards – each with four designs – plus a bonus ‘cover’ card (see left).

‘50 Shades of Cambridge’ is a fantastic, moderately-priced present for anyone who lives in, and/or loves, Cambridge. It is also a great way to support the charitable work of CAMS Music Trust.

Easy to post, the cards are attractively packaged in a white, lightweight postal carton – all you need to do is to buy some and send them to a lucky recipient – writing an address on the boxes and sticking stamps on.

’50 Shades of Cambridge’ card sets are available for just £10 per pack (postage extra).

Buy 5 packs for the reduced price of £45.

Card 1

• The Gog Magog Hills are a range of low chalk hills to the southeast of Cambridge thought to be named after a mythical giant inhabitant of Albion discovered (and destroyed) by Brutus of Troy.
• Hemingford Grey is a Cambridgeshire village that takes its name from a Saxon chief (Hemma), a river crossing (ford) and a family once in possession of the local manor (de Greys).
• Cherry Hinton is a suburban area of Cambridge with links to Alan Rufus (Alan the Red), a kinsman and companion of William the Conqueror. Rufus confiscated Hinton Manor from Queen Edith Swanneck, first wife of Harold II of England.
• The River Cam (original name Granta) is the main river flowing through Cambridge. Rupert Brooke celebrated its “thrilling-sweet and rotten, unforgettable, unforgotten river-smell” and called it “green as a dream and deep as death”.

Card 2

• Kettle’s Yard is an art gallery and house founded by Jim Ede. Found and natural objects have always featured among the exhibits at the museum and pebbles can be found in varying arrangements throughout the house.
• Cambridge United FC (founded 1912) is the city’s highest achieving professional football team. Although the club’s nickname is ‘The Yellows’, the club have always described their colours as amber and black and the fans describe themselves as the ‘Amber Army’.
• The Botanic Gardens comprise 40 acres filled with over 8,000 plant species. It was created by Prof. John Stevens Henslow (Charles Darwin’s mentor) and opened to the public in 1846.
• David Parr House, otherwise known as 186 Gwydir Street, is a seemingly ordinary mid-Victorian worker’s terraced property. Parr was a decorator, mural and stained-glass painter and over a period of 40 years (from 1886), he transformed his family home into a work of decorative art using patterns he painted for his employer.

Card 3

• Rose Crescent is a pedestrianised shopping street off the Market Square. Like several of Cambridge’s more interesting streets, it was originally the yard of a coaching inn. The “Rose Tavern” property was redeveloped in 1825 to create the crescent.
• Parker’s Piece, a square-shaped common located near the city centre, takes its name from Edward Parker who leased the land in 1587. It has been used for first-class cricket matches (1817 – 1864) and was the place where the ‘Cambridge Rules’ of football were first put into practice – rules that were later adopted by the Football Association in 1863.
• The Blue Ball Inn, dating from 1767, is the oldest pub in the village of Grantchester. It is believed to have been named after a hot air balloon (presumably blue-coloured) that landed in a nearby field.
• Clare College’s yellow flashes of colour at the bumps and other sporting events make it distinctive. The colour is abstracted from its crest of yellow, black and red.

Card 4

• Tom Karen OBE is a British industrial designer of Czech descent and a Cambridge resident. He created two iconic ‘orange’ designs of the 70s and 80s – the Chopper bicycle and the Bond Bug.
• Cambridge Gowns, at least those for the BA and (most) undergraduate students, are made of black stuff (cloth).  Sub-fusc “a dark/dusky colour”, refers to the clothes to be worn with full academic dress.
• Grantchester Meadows – a ‘benign Arcadian green’ represents this flood plain riverbank that stretches from Lammas Land to the Ditton Plough. It features in the poem “Watercolor Of Grantchester Meadows” by Sylvia Plath and in a 1969 song by Pink Floyd.
• Kings College’s distinctive purple branding is seen all over Cambridge – on scarves, school uniforms, and all the merchandising of the college.

Card 5

• Donkey Common is a stretch of green common land opposite Parker’s Piece. It has accommodated the Town’s Gaol, WW2 prefabs, a swimming pool, a multi-story carpark, a YMCA, a sports hall – and presumably, at some point in the past – some donkeys.
• Churchill College chose the colour pink for its rowing club’s colours as they were the horse-racing colours of Sir Winston Churchill. The club is very proud of its lurid pink racing shells, double sculls splash-tops and lycra outfits.
• Sheep’s Green is one of the many areas in Cambridge where commoners have traditionally had grazing rights. This is a seasonally flooded area by the River Cam and provides grazing ground for ‘Dairy stock to a total of 20 beasts’.
• Cambridge Whites (or Buffs) are a traditional, imperial bricks, made from local gault clay soil formed in deep-water marine environments during the Lower Cretaceous Period. When fired, the bricks vary in colour according to the ratio of clay to sand but typically vary from white to pale yellow or buff.

Card 6

• Red Poll Cattle – a 70-strong herd – are now a familiar sight scattered across the commons of Cambridge. Red Poll is a traditional East Anglian breed: a 19th century cross between Norfolk Red beef cattle and Suffolk Dun dairy cattle breeds.
• Midsummer Common is a stretch of common land next to the river. Major events held here include the May Day Fair, Strawberry Fair and the Midsummer Fair (aka Pot Fair) which was granted a charter by King John in 1211.
• Pink Floyd’s band members – Syd Barrett, Roger Waters and David Gilmour, all grew up in Cambridge. The band’s name is derived from a combination of the names of two US blues musicians Pink Anderson and Floyd Council.
• Fitzbillies Chelsea Buns – ultra-sticky and super-sweet – have been the company’s most famous and popular product since 1920. Head Baker, Gill Abbs, who joined the business in 1971, estimates that in that time she has made 5 million buns.

Card 7

• St. John’s College’s rowing club, The Lady Margaret Club (1825) wore jackets of a scarlet cloth so bright the jackets became known as blazers. Over time the word blazer has come to mean any coloured flannel jacket for sports or seaside wear as well as the dark, single/double breasted, metallic-buttoned descendants of the reefer jacket of naval origin.
• Cambridge Pudding is a sweet, suet and breadcrumb-based pudding boiled in a cloth. It is known to date back to 1615 and was baked in the old kitchens of Queens’ College and served at high table.
• Jesus Green is a park in the north of Cambridge city centre that became separated from Midsummer Common when Victoria Avenue was built. Jesus Green has since become a park and is no longer maintained in a state suitable for grazing.
• M11. The distinctive blue UK motorway road signs are familiar to Cambridge drivers coming back from London via the M11  – the 55-mile motorway that opened in 1980.

Card 8

• Addenbrooke’s Hospital was founded in 1766 on Trumpington Street with money from the will of Dr John Addenbrooke. Since then, it has grown to the size of a small town on its new site. It has its own rowing club and races in the colours (dark blue) of its specialist and senior nurses.
• The Blue Moon pub in Norfolk Street (called The Man in the Moon in 1850 and The Man ON the Moon in 1964) was re-christened The Blue Moon in 2013 because it was taken over by the owners of the Cambridge Blue.
• Jesus Green Lido is an open-air swimming pool next to the River Cam (from where it originally took its water). It is one of the few remaining examples of the lidos built across the country in the 1920s. It is among the longest outdoor swimming pools in Europe at 100 yards (91 m) in length.
• Lammas Land is a stretch of land where, historically, commoners were entitled to pasture rights even if they had no other rights to the land. The grazing window ran from 12th August (Lammas Day aka Loaf Mass Day) through to 6th April.

Card 9

• A River Punt is a flat-bottomed boat with a square-cut bow, designed for use in shallow water. The original Thames punts and those at Oxford are punted differently from those in Cambridge where a more efficient system of punting from the top of the till (or “deck”) has evolved.
• Trinity Hall rejoices in the colour black. Taking a lead from its distinctive black and white crest, the colour features throughout the college – except, that is, with its undergraduate gowns which are dark blue instead of the customary black.
• The Backs refer the picturesque area between Queens’ College and St. Johns College where several colleges ‘back’ on to the River Cam. The view, especially beautiful when illuminated with the yellow glow of spring daffodils, has been rated by Simon Jenkins as one of the top ten in England.
• Christ’s Pieces, a park next to Christ’s College, were conveyed by Jesus College to the city in 1886 with the stipulation that the land should be maintained as a public open space in perpetuity and that no buildings should ever be erected on it.

Card 10

• Sir Isaac Newton (1642 – 1727) was a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, theologian, and author – one of the most influential scientists of all time. He was a fellow of Trinity College and Professor of Mathematics at the University. He said he was inspired to formulate his theory of gravitation by watching the fall of an apple from a tree.
• Downing College’s favourite colour, despite a crest of blue, yellow and green, is magenta. Downing takes its name from the family of benefactors who also gave us Downing Street in London. A door, formerly in Number 10 Downing St, is in use in the college.
• Atom Splitter is a golden ale made by the City of Cambridge Brewery to celebrate the work of the Cavendish Laboratory and its world leading research into atomic and nuclear physics.
• Wandlebury Ring is an earthwork, part of a country park just south of Cambridge. In 2000 years of history it has been many things: an Iron Age Hillfort, home to some Romans, part of an 18th century country estate and home to the stables and grave of the famous Godolphin Arabian horse.

Card 11

• Castle Hill is a grass-covered knoll in Cambridge. The hill is the site of the original pre-Roman settlement, north of the River Cam. The Romans created a town called Duroliponte here. The Anglo Saxons used the hill for defence and the Normans built a Castle on it.
• Geranium Cantabrigiense is a hardy plant – amazingly floriferous with great groundcover. It is slug and rabbit resistant, attractive to bees and not fussy on soil conditions in sun or part shade.
• Parkside School is a secondary school of 600 pupils next to Parker’s Piece. Its pupils, who wear sky blue uniforms, are a common sight on and around Parker’s Piece.
• Milton Brewery’s Nero is a multi-award-winning, full-flavoured, black-brewed beer served in many Cambridge pubs. Nero is an unfined beer and is therefore suitable for vegans.

Card 12

• Hobson’s Choice – meaning “a free choice” in which only one thing is offered – is a phrase said to have originated with Thomas Hobson (1544–1631), a Cambridge livery stable owner. It is also the name of a light zesty ale made by the City of Cambridge Brewery.
• Coe Fen is a semi-rural meadowland area to the east of the River Cam. It is liable to flooding and thus only suitable for grazing (cows on Coe Fen, sheep on Sheep’s Green, hence the names). It gives its name to a famous hymn tune by Ken Naylor, music teacher (1953-80) at the nearby Leys School.
• Scott Polar Museum and Research Institute is a centre for research into the polar regions and glaciology and is located on Lensfield Road. It was founded in 1920 as a memorial to Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his companions, who died on their return journey from the South Pole in 1912.
• Strawberry Fair (founded 1974) is a festival of music, entertainments, arts and crafts held annually on Midsummer Common on the first Saturday in June. It is open to the public and free.

Card 13

• The Geology Museum – aka The Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, is the geology museum of the University. It has a collection of around 2 million rocks, minerals and fossils, spanning a period of 4.5 billion years. The collection includes 2,000 rocks and fossils collected by Charles Darwin.
• Butt Green is an area of Midsummer Common historically used for bow and arrow practice with archery butts. In 1351 the County of Cambridge was required to raise 100 archers for the King’s passage to France. Of this number the town was to furnish twenty archers – so they needed a place to practice.
• Honorary Degree gowns worn by graduands are scarlet, with silk linings and facings of different colours according to the degree concerned. The day of the Honorary Degree Congregation is a ‘scarlet day’, when Cambridge doctors wear their scarlet ‘festal’ gowns instead of black ones.
• The Corn Exchange was built in 1868 using a quarter of a million local bricks (mostly Cambridge whites). It has been used for corn trading, motor shows, tea parties, boxing, wrestling and roller skating. Since the 1970s has been used for pop concerts including: The Who, Pink Floyd, David Bowie and Queen.

Card 14

• Trinity Burnt Pudding. Burnt Cream (French; crème brulee) is often thought to be French although the first written reference (1691) calls it ‘crème à l’Angloise’. It has long been associated with Trinity College where the college arms are customarily impressed on top of the cream with a branding iron.
• The Red Lion is Cambridge’s last remaining ‘Lion’ pub. There have been ‘Lion’ pubs of many hues in the city throughout the years – Blue, Black (2), White, Green and Red (4). The Red Lion in Petty Cury was a Cambridge landmark for centuries before ‘making way’ for the Lion Yard shopping centre.
• Cambridge Blue is three things: a colour (controversial), a pub, and a sporting award (see Half Blue). The University defines this colour, commonly used by its sports teams, as Pantone 557, which is actually a medium tone of spring green. Some, such as the University’s rugby club prefer a paler sky blue.
• Half Blue or (Full) Blue is an award for university athletes competing at the highest level of their sport, which must include being in a varsity match or race against the University of Oxford. Winners are entitled to wear a blues blazer. Half blue blazers are typically off-white with Cambridge blue lapels and trimmings.