Christian Heritage in Cambridge

After church today, Margaret took me and Eunice, an Italian girl from church, to take part in a tour of the Christian heritage found in Cambridge. It was an interesting tour but we were really cold so it was sometimes difficult to concentrate. I'm planning to take in a longer tour on Monday and wear a toque and mittens.

I find it amusing that this is a statue of William Wilburforce and Ioan Gruffudd played him in the movie, Amazing Grace. I don't see the resemblance, but I'm not complaining about the casting choice.

We visited several churches or chapels and walked on the grounds of a couple of colleges. I'm looking forward to walking through more slowly with my camera as the fall colours and old buildings are beautiful.

Bell-ringers at St. Bene't's Church.

Our tour guide found a quiet church called St. Bene't for us to use as a place to keep warm as she gave us some of the history of the Reformation and connections to Cambridge. A few students came in and started setting things up to ring the bells. Turns out that they were going to ring the bells for about 45 minutes! There were six bells and one student pulled the rope for each bell. There are numerous different sequences so they start with one, move to another, almost like working through a songbook. Our tour guide finished, but we waited until the bells started ringing so we could see how it works. We listened to them move though a couple of sequences (there's a mathetmatical formula because it takes a certain length of time to ring each bell) and I shot a short video clip.

Ian and Margaret were incredibly hospitable over the weekend - delicious food, lots of laughter, and great conversations. Ian dropped me off at the Victoria Guest House after dinner and I'll be here for the next two nights. The place is clean and beautiful and the owners are really friendly... nothing like the Cheshire Cat.