Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- General Editor's preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Townscape and university: topographical change
- 2 The university: its constitution, personnel, and tasks
- 3 Colleges: buildings, masters, and fellows
- 4 Colleges: tutors, bursars, and money
- 5 Mathematics, law, and medicine
- 6 Science and other studies
- 7 Religion in the university: its rituals and significance
- 8 The Orthodox and Latitudinarian traditions, 1700–1800
- 9 Cambridge religion 1780–1840: Evangelicalism
- 10 Cambridge religion: the mid-Victorian years
- 11 The university as a political institution, 1750–1815
- 12 The background to university reform, 1830–1850
- 13 Cambridge and reform, 1815–1870
- 14 The Graham Commission and its aftermath
- 15 The undergraduate experience, I: Philip Yorke and the Wordsworths
- 16 The undergraduate experience, II: Charles Astor Bristed and William Everett
- 17 The undergraduate experience, III: William Thomson
- 18 Games for gownsmen: walking, athletics, boating, and ball games
- 19 Leisure for town and gown: music, debating, and drama
- Appendices
- Bibliography
- Index
18 - Games for gownsmen: walking, athletics, boating, and ball games
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 April 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of illustrations
- General Editor's preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Townscape and university: topographical change
- 2 The university: its constitution, personnel, and tasks
- 3 Colleges: buildings, masters, and fellows
- 4 Colleges: tutors, bursars, and money
- 5 Mathematics, law, and medicine
- 6 Science and other studies
- 7 Religion in the university: its rituals and significance
- 8 The Orthodox and Latitudinarian traditions, 1700–1800
- 9 Cambridge religion 1780–1840: Evangelicalism
- 10 Cambridge religion: the mid-Victorian years
- 11 The university as a political institution, 1750–1815
- 12 The background to university reform, 1830–1850
- 13 Cambridge and reform, 1815–1870
- 14 The Graham Commission and its aftermath
- 15 The undergraduate experience, I: Philip Yorke and the Wordsworths
- 16 The undergraduate experience, II: Charles Astor Bristed and William Everett
- 17 The undergraduate experience, III: William Thomson
- 18 Games for gownsmen: walking, athletics, boating, and ball games
- 19 Leisure for town and gown: music, debating, and drama
- Appendices
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
WALKING AND ATHLETICS
WALKING
‘The staple exercise is walking; between two and four all the roads in the neighborhood of Cambridge – that is to say within four miles of it – are covered with men taking their constitutionals.’ Until the invention of the safety bicycle in 1885 walking was the most common exercise in Victorian Cambridge, at least for reading men. They devoted the afternoon hours to it – the time always recommended for exercise, between the morning and evening stints of intellectual labour. The favourite route was the ‘Grantchester Grind’ – out from the college along the Trumpington Road, then turning west past Trumpington church, over the river past Grantchester mill and through the village back to Cambridge, taking the road or the river footpath. It was on such a walk one chill November afternoon that Olva Dune met and murdered Carfax in Hugh Walpole's novel of Edwardian Cambridge. Most undergraduates walked in twos; conversation was part of the attraction of the exercise. ‘These walks meant close companionship and exchange of views, and were in truth a valuable part of the varied processes that made up an University training.’ But as for the large numbers of non-reading men, ‘the exercise was too humdrum to suit youths with no ideas to exchange and prone to intellectual rest’.
The walkers were time-conscious; they were fitting exercise into a brief afternoon slot. They wore ordinary clothes, and did not change into rambling gear.
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- Information
- A History of the University of Cambridge , pp. 641 - 680Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997