Friday night quiz

[Gareth Hughes]

OK, which Cambridge College was this, and where is it? (it's not as easy as it looks)

 

[Penners]

it's not as easy as it looks

Oh - it looks easy, does it? :shock:

Wild guess - Caius.

 

[Penners]

And don't try telling me that it's somewhere at Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts. or I'll.... I'll.....spit.

(Anyway, it's just too old and English for that).

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Well, it won't help if I tell you that the entrance to the "College" is through the battlemented bit of the building on the left in this photo:

 

[Gareth Hughes]

it's not as easy as it looks

Oh - it looks easy, does it? :shock:

Wild guess - Caius.

Not even close...
But there's a lot published and on t'interweb about Cambridge Colleges, and their features are pretty distinctive, so I thought it would be really easy to locate when I started searching for it some years ago. I was wrong too.
The "was" rather than "is" is a bit of a clue. And only for a brief period :twisted:

 

[biffvernon]

Is that the world's biggest wheelchair ramp in the Avignon pic?

 

[Jon Maine]

Ely I believe not a tea rooms now is it?

 

[Penners]

Well, it won't help if I tell you that the entrance to the "College" is through the battlemented bit of the building on the left

Absolutely right. It doesn't help a bit. And the 'was' versus 'is' thing is no help either. Except that I presume it's no longer a college.

Is Jon correct? If so, how does a Cambridge college come to be in Ely? That's a hell of a bike ride to lectures.

 

[Jon Maine]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lmiatoque/22312188/

The one in the same I believe

 

[Penners]

Definitely the same photo, Jon. Well done!

Gareth - I'm still interested know what a Cambridge college was doing in Ely...

 

[Jon Maine]

I wonder if we are looking at the correct definition of college Penners. Could it be "A body of clerics living together on an endowment."??

 

[Jon Maine]

And if so should Gareth have asked Cambridgeshire rather than Cambridge?

Come on Gareth knock this one on the head for us.

 

[fjpdesigns]

Had me flummoxed. I thought that was Specsaver in the photo and tried to find that in Cambridge. I also went down the route of looking for a renamed college.

 

[Penners]

And if so should Gareth have asked Cambridgeshire rather than Cambridge?

Maybe you're right. I inferred that this was a college of Cambridge University, albeit not in Cambridge.

Maybe Gareth will enlighten us.

fjpdesigns - I happen to know where Specsavers is in Cambridge, so the picture flummoxed me too!

(It's a great word, isn't it? Flummox!)

 

[fjpdesigns]

You can't beat the occasional bit of flummoxing.

 

[Gareth Hughes]

And if so should Gareth have asked Cambridgeshire rather than Cambridge?

Maybe you're right. I inferred that this was a college of Cambridge University, albeit not in Cambridge.

Maybe Gareth will enlighten us.

fjpdesigns - I happen to know where Specsavers is in Cambridge, so the picture flummoxed me too!

(It's a great word, isn't it? Flummox!)

As, in a previous thread (some time ago) you mentioned having a "Blue" from there, I though it was a college you knew, Penners.
The quad is a considerable distance (50 miles or so) from the gate (which is, indeed in Ely), and English Heritage have recently spent a lot of money on it.

 

[Jon Maine]

Porterhouse College?

 

[Jon Maine]

Apethorpe also?

 

[Penners]

you mentioned having a "Blue" from there, I though it was a college you knew, Penners.
The quad is a considerable distance (50 miles or so) from the gate (which is, indeed in Ely), and English Heritage have recently spent a lot of money on it.

A 'Blue' ??? I think you're mixin' me up with someone intelligent, Guv'nor. I kissed farewell to education with nothing more than couple of A-levels, a budgerigar and a serious case of acne.

Now will you please stop playing us like a spirited salmon and tell us where the place is?!

 

[Gareth Hughes]

Jon's got it - Apethorpe Hall in Northamptonshire, which (together with the Sacrist's Gate at Ely) was Porterhouse College in the Channel 4 adaptation of "Porterhouse Blue" (sorry, a particularly evil and twisted phrasing of the question). But with its varying dates and the aborted eighteenth century rebuild, it does look remarkably unlike a country house, and very like a Cambridge College.
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/server/show/nav.10929 Currently on the market if anyone's got a spare few million down the back of the sofa.