Photographs of Cambridge
Click on an image to see the full picture
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the
county of Cambridgeshire, England. Cambridge University is the second-oldest
(after Oxford) university in the English-speaking world. It is a collegiate
university, meaning that it is made up of self-governing and independent colleges,
each with its own property and income.
The earliest clear evidence of occupation in Cambridge are the remains of a
3,500-year-old farmstead discovered at the site of Fitzwilliam College. There is
further archaeological evidence through the Iron Age, when there was a settlement
on Castle Hill in the 1st century BC. Castle Hill made Cambridge a useful place for
a Roman military outpost called Duroliponte from which to defend the River Cam.
In 1209, students escaping from hostile townspeople in Oxford fled to Cambridge
and formed a university there. The oldest college that still exists, Peterhouse, was
founded in 1284. One of the most impressive buildings in Cambridge, King's College
Chapel, was begun in 1446 by King Henry VI. The project was completed in 1515
during the reign of King Henry VIII. Many colleges were founded during the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries.
