In between Christmas and New Year celebrations I had decided to head out on a road trip starting at Cambridge for an exhibition by Black Country Type (Tom Hicks) at Churchill College, Cambridge. Then a short trip to New Court at Christ’s College and I would then follow this by driving to Cockfosters tube station in the North of London, jump on the underground, stop at a few stations that appear in my new book on Modern Buildings in Britain by Owen Hatherly. Once I’ve alighted and reboarded the train a few times to look at the modernist designs of Cockfosters, Oakwood, Southgate, Arnos Grove, Turnpike Lane, Manor House which are designed by Charles Holden. Once through the stations it would be onwards to Barbican where I was planning on making some redscale photos on my 35mm film camera. (Leica M6).
Setting off at around 9am I aimed my sat-nav at a car park in Cambridge centre and drove towards it. It was about two and a half hours of driving until I pulled into the car park, (Short Stay), coming to the barrier I could see that the short stay nature of this car park meant that 4 hours of parking would cost over £25, which was a bit excessive so I went to the first floor and then straight out of the exit ramp, no way I’m paying that much for parking, no way at all…
Shouting at Siri to find me a long stay car park, I was diverted to Cambridge Station and its car park. Only, when I arrived there it was closed and people being turned away. Nice. My bladder was calling out for some relief and I managed to find a multi-storey car park on the Google Maps query and headed there, at Cambridge Leisure. Parking up and walking quickly away to the nearby bowling alley to use their conveniences before heading off to the Exhibition at Churchill College.
A quick search on the exhibition details showed me that Churchill College’s Culture centre was on Trumpington Street so I walked that way, realising my next mistake was that this is not the correct location. Looking more in detail at the exhibition details I could see that I was in totally the wrong place, I should have been at the Churchill College on Storey’s Way a 35 minute walk away. Bugger. Time was getting away from me, with some major plans for afterwards too. I had seen a few VOI bikes and scooters around, so decided to sign up to the Voi platform and then hired an ebike, £5 for 30 mins.
Churchill Victory
After a five minute ride in the wrong direction I worked out which way I should be going and headed off, it took about twenty five minutes in the end, finally pulling up outside the wonderful Churchill College front entrance.
I made a few photographs of the entrance and the surroundings, noticing that a piece of artwork was located there also, one which seemed familiar. You can see in the photos below that the same piece of art was located in Churchill College this visit and had been included in the 2024 Shrewsbury Arts Trail located in the Dingle gardens. This art is Almuth Tebbenhoff’s ‘RedHead Sunset Stack’
Moving on from here I could see the porters hut but avoided it at first so I could wander around without permission as I may not have got permission if I’d asked. The old saying is “Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission”, and I wasn’t going to be causing any damage or nuisance so figured it would be ok until someone asked me to get out.
From the porter’s area I walked out into the main accomodation area which comprise of concrete walkways and enclosed courtyards with grass, concrete paving or even sculpture in the centre. The uniformity of the areas struck me first and the community style nature of the place with almost all living spaces looking over the central courtyard. Moving through a tunnel into the next quadrangle left me faced with a practically identical setup. The walkways appeared to be many concrete blocks, almost as if they were upturned concrete railway sleepers, some had holes in also. The mixture of materials is also what stood out to me, as it was not concrete entirely it was made up of dark brown engineering bricks, concrete and wood in many different forms. Some of the concrete was also displaying the signs of the shuttering boards that give the concrete faces a wood-grain appearance.
The university grounds are filled with sculpture and artworks, inside the buildings and outside. The college is the largest of the Cambridge Colleges and concentrates on a majority of STEM and the Arts subjects. There is a large walkthrough Hepworth sculpture called Four Square that has a presence int he wide open space behind the main buildings.
From outside I went back in through an unlocked door and found the stairs upwards, with a bust of Winston Churchill, and the large hall above. It is a big room with the vaulted ceiling high above and easily imaginable as a location of some big events. The wood in this room had a really warm feeling and was somewhere that would be a cool place to spend time.
From here, I wandered back out to the porter’s lodge to see if I could find the exhibition I was there to see. A knock on the counter in the room where students mail arrives on site saw a security porter pop out of the back room. A quick conversation about the exhibition and her lack of knowledge led me to believe that it cannot be an open and available exhibition, I had emailed a few times to see if there was a process to gain access but never received a reply. She very hellpfully phoned up Barry who was surprised to hear that someone from Shrewsbury had travelled to the exhibition without an appointment and after offering to help me at 5:30pm suggested that he could come down in twenty minutes and show me the exhibition. Whilst I really appreciated this offer, I could tell that it meant that Barry was being disturbed from his current activity. I wasn’t sure if he was at home with his family, at work catching up on emails, or in the pub with his friends, but i didn’t want to be the reason he was facing disruption, so I asked the porter politely to let Barry know that it was ok and I would not cause him disruption.
It was no big deal really to not see Tom’s work as I’ve seen it regularly but felt like it was supportive to visit it in Cambridge, but not at the expense of people who were doing something else. I had other places to go so I started on the journey to the centre of the city to discover New Court at Christ’s college.
Back To The City
I thanked the porter and went out to get back on the Voi bike again. But, it had gone, either used by another traveller or been picked up by the crew to return it back to the city centre. Never mind, I would walk. I often find many different places to explore whilst walking through unknown places and although it was a forty minute walk, it went by pretty quickly. I walked past the Baron Of Beef pub and resolved to return later for a drink in there. It was the pub that featured in the film Micro Men, retelling the story of Clive Sinclair and Chris Curry, so I wanted to have a quick look in there. I also thought about the Cambridge Computing or Sinclair Computing offices as they must be close by but these were a bit further out so I left them for another day. Walking through the city, it was rammed with shoppers out to spend their Christmas vouchers or spending money and as I moved along I snapped a few street photography shots too.
As I found myself close to New Court, I couldn’t actually see any of it. It was behind a large wall of shops and residential accommodation so I moved past it hoping for a gateway or door etc, but no. Retracing my steps I walked around the brutalist buildings protective wall until I came to a porters gate and this was all locked and closed up so I continued around the perimeter all the while looking for a legal entry point. Going all the way around I came back to the “back wall” of the architecture and had no viable entry method so I retired to the park next door where I would break out my DJI Mini 4 Pro drone.
Setting up and taking off I was super careful of the multitude of trees that were all surrounding and took to the skies, after checking safety requirement were all complete took to the air, ensuring to stay below the 120m limit that is enforced. I sent up the drone over the buildings that were designed by Denys Lasdun and noticed the similarity of them to the UEA buildings or Ziggurats that I’d previously visited with the redscale film and drone earlier this year.
It was an impressive piece of architecture to see in the middle of the city and to find that there was a veritable oasis of greenery included in the whole location. It was interesting to also see the solar panels that have been installed to help reduce the power overheads of the college, but I wonder if it makes a big difference to the overall appearance. Looking at older pictures it appears that the roofs where the panels are located today were once painted grey or at least were covered with a grey felt or resin like covering.
After a very short flight around this set of buildings I took a few photos over the city to show the location that this campus sits within making it stand out like a sore thumb. Perhaps that is why it is hidden so well from the outside world. Then when it was time to land the drone again I had to change locations as some kids had gathered to play football against the wall, so I landed it within the park, well clear of any other passerby and packed it away carefully.
Malcolm In The Centre
I walked around the corner once more and noticed some buildings that looked modern too up a flight of steps and went for a quick look there, this is Malcolm Place and was built as part of the same works on the street where the New Court was built. It is a parade of shops with accommodation atop and a garage under the back for the residents. Very reminiscent to me of the Alexandra Road estate in London so I snapped a couple of photos and then went for a drink in the Baron Of Beef.
Whilst sat in the pub having a pint of Guinness Zero I looked around for the familiar layout that I recalled from the Micro Men film, but was disappointed to not find it, then checking on the Filming Locations for the movie, and discovering that the confrontation had been filmed in a West London pub. Still it was good to see the external that features in the film and feel closer than ever to my ZX Spectrum 48K.
Looking at the time now, it was getting on and I figured that I did not have the time to get to Cockfosters, shoot at the stations and then Barbican, before the trip to my brother’s on the way back. I canned the idea of getting on the tubes and the Barbican, in favour of a visit to see Dave. A walk back to where the car was parked in the Leisure centre was going to take another 40 minutes and I walked past a large Christmas fayre with a ferris wheel on the recreation ground. A walk around here and snapping a few shots led me to the end closest to the car and I headed back. Upon unloading my gear at the multi-storey car park and starting up the vehicle I realised just how cold it had been. The heaters were on full in my car now and I programmed in the route to Hemel Hempstead. Down the ramps and to the gate where it was ticketless, I offered my card up to see a price of £24, what an absolute sting, a rip off. Id been there for a few hours but I’d also seen a couple of schools on the route that had opened up their playgrounds to park in for £8 or £10 the day, I’ll know next time if I ever go back.
Brothers In Arms
Feeling a bit mugged off I headed over to see my older bro and we had a good chat about the issues that are ongoing in his life at the moment. It proper cheered me up to see him and spend some time with him as he was going to come to our house on Christmas Day but never made it. We shot the shit for an hour or so before I headed back out into the darkness and onto the road for the 3.5 hour drive back to Shrewsbury.
Conclusion
Always book an appointment to the exhibitions. A lesson I learned here was to avoid putting people out and getting things booked up front, I had tried emailing without a response but hey ho. I’ll see some more of Tom’s work as the next few years go forward. Another lesson here about forward thinking is about parking, finding a more cost effective spot.
One great thing I took from this is that a simple look around a college driven by a book that I had for Christmas led me to a full day out, spending some time on a Voi rental bike, seeing sights from a favourite movie and getting to explore one of Britain’s oldest cities.
The concrete, modernist buildings of Churchill College and New Court, Christ’s College are impressive places to visit but not as breathtaking as the likes of University of Leeds or even the UEA in Norfolk. It is great to see all of these different places, and compare the feeling or vibe of them to the University Of Wolverhampton where I am currently studying part time for my degree in photography. They appear to be a little more “prestigious” or old fashioned compared to my place of study but each of the campuses have an openness and a feeling of being a place of enlightenment and I have found this at every University I have ever visited.
It was also good to do some more “set jetting”, or travelling around looking at movie locations such as those from Micro Men, but also Chariots Of Fire and The Theory Of Everything which also filmed in and around Cambridge.
Taking the drone with me in my backpack also proved to be a smart move as I was able to capture photos of New Court, without having sneaked into the area.
What is left in Cambridge to look at? Manor Place, near Malcolm Place, a similar set of buildings housing residents, The Sinclair Building and some of the main tourist spots, such as the Bridge of Sighs and the big colleges that were already closed off to visitors. Plenty to look at around there yet!!
What about the tube stations and Barbican, when will I get to them? Already have, went on the 2nd January in the new year so there will be another post with that adventure.
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