Here Comes the Sun: Jesus Green, Midsummer Common, and the Lower Cam

When the sun comes out in Cambridge, so, of course, do the people. When I wandered out to Jesus Green today to catch some sun myself, I knew it would be busy, but I didn’t realize I was going to soak up people as much as sun. Pandemic lockdown is to human presence as winter is to vitamin D, and sitting at my desk for months has starved me of both. The warmth, the colors, the spread of people in all their shapes, sizes, accents, and energies; people out in the world doing things, talking, relaxing in shared space—is it possible I had started to forget what this is like? Jesus Green began to give this bounty back to me today.

Jesus Green, together with the contiguous Midsummer Common, is the largest public green space in central Cambridge. The expanses of short-cropped lawn extend in sinuous triangular and trapezoidal patches along a three-quarter-mile S-curve of the River Cam, crisscrossed by long diagonal paths. The name Jesus Green may be a bit jarring to the uninitiated (though wait until you hear about Christ’s Pieces), but it’s a familiar name in the secular mouths of Cambridge students, as it comes from the neighboring Jesus College (the full name of which is actually “The College of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Saint John the Evangelist and the glorious Virgin Saint Radegund, near Cambridge,” so you can see why the nickname, from its chapel, stuck sometime after the founding in 1496). Jesus Ditch, essentially a moat, marks one edge of Jesus Green and keeps the public out of the sprawling college grounds, assuming they’re unwilling to wade through stagnant algae.

The name of Midsummer Common reflects its historical use a common for grazing animals, and while Jesus Green no longer supports cattle, they do occasionally still graze on Midsummer Common. The heaviest modern use of the greens, other than daily recreation, is as a staging ground for large outdoor festivals (sans pandemic). One night not long after I first arrived in Cambridge, I found myself wedged among thousands of people on Midsummer Common to watch the Bonfire Night fireworks display and the effigy of Guy Fawkes burning in the eponymous bonfire. At the time of writing, Google Maps satellite imagery still shows Jesus Green half-occupied by a huge pavilion and multitude of food trucks and tables for some pre-pandemic summer fair (Beer Festival perhaps?). Most of the time, however, Midsummer Common is a wide, flat, mostly empty open space where people pass through on the long paths, and Jesus Green is a tree-lined park where people linger.

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My favorite part of Jesus Green and Midsummer Common is the river path. I love the river itself, wider here after Jesus Lock (more on that later), full of swans and rowers and crossed by several painted bridges; and there are the houseboats and riverboats moored long and low in pastel and jewel tones along one bank, and the jaunty college boathouses along the opposite bank. So this is where I start today.

I approach from the Victorian rowhouses packed in behind Chesterton Road, laced with narrow alleyways I’m tempted to stop and explore, but I’m here for the river and the green. As soon as I cross the road to the river I’m caught up in its sunny energy. The sloping banks are bright with daffodils and willows hang yellow over the water, which is glossy and holds the color of the houseboats and trees and sky. A swan approaches from last narrow reach of the river along the Backs, trailing its wake and glowing white. Families and pairs clip by, carry their shopping bags, crouch to look at daffodils, discuss where to cast their fishing lines, and funnel onto the hundred-plus-year-old[1] black iron footbridge over Jesus Lock.

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Jesus Lock: the water level in the river is controlled by several weirs and locks along its course, where held-up water spills over in an angular V-shaped cascade roped off by massive green buoys. The lock, a channel with two sets of gates with long curving handles like cattle horns, is where a boat would be lowered downstream or raised upstream. I’ve never seen any boats bigger than punts and kayaks above Jesus Lock, but apparently houseboats sometimes cross. In any case, Jesus Lock marks the end of the Backs punting tours and the beginning of the houseboat and college rowing territory. (Although today, while national lockdown still reigns, rowing is off-limits.)

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Over the bridge, I pause to people-watch. People are scattered in pairs and small clusters (some questionable as far as Covid regulations are concerned) all along the green or strolling on the path with dogs or whizzing by on bikes or queuing for the hot dog stand that is somewhat surprisingly open. A low bass beat is pulsing somewhere down the path until it gets louder and passes by, attached to a guy’s bike as he walks it to a table with his buddy and a Costa coffee. A few people are fly-fishing on wide steps leading down to the river; their lines go whisk, plop somewhere upstream and snake obliquely along the surface of the water. There are fishers all along the river today, but I don’t see a single fish—except for a small fry with green-gold scales and vivid scarlet fins hanging upside down from a fisherman’s pole as he passes by, an exciting sight until I realize it’s just a high-detail lure.[2] Also coming down these steps are kayaks—a father and son each hold an end—and paddle boards and inflatable rafts. A loud rhythmic clacking on the road across the river turns out to be shire horses pulling buggies at a quick trot.

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Although the central avenue of Jesus Green begins here, wide, inviting, lined with majestic London plane trees, I keep to the river path to admire the houseboats. There is a lot I don’t know about this community, and it feels strange, somewhat invasive, to walk right alongside their bank-level windows and take photos of the crisply painted hulls and potted plants (but I do it anyway). I don’t know how many of the boat-dwellers have other homes, or how often what looks to me like a picturesque, cozy spot on the Cam is a financial necessity or a getaway or simply home.

Some of the boats have a whimsical and even upper-crust look. The Antoinette, for example,has cream paint and forest-green trim with a dark wood cabin, a deck full of potted tropical plants, and a (possibly) resident cat in a red collar coming down the gangplank; on my walk back there are several people sitting in the deck chairs with wine glasses. The neighboring boat is simpler, with chipped sky-blue paint. Acrid fumes draw my attention to wood or charcoal smoke coming out of the pipe chimney, but I don’t see anyone in the window; just a propped open book and a bowl of fruit. Elsewhere I see a wooden ship’s wheel guarded by a handsome spaniel; small tidy bookshelves; many bags of charcoal and kindling; solar panels; pots of spring bulbs and bright orange life savers. One boat has window shutters with folksy floral patterns, and I don’t realize until after I snap a photo that the resident was poking his head out. Some boats have an air of neglect and obviously haven’t moved in years—caked with mud and strewn with tree debris, a deck like a miniature junkyard, half-submerged lifeboat and slimy kayak floating off the end.

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Beyond the closed Jesus Green Lido (outdoor swimming pool) and very not-closed playground, I reach the stately Victoria Avenue Bridge, which is arched and painted with appropriately Victorian flourishes in white on blue-grey with coats of arms in the corners. Reflections waver on the broad underside and the coos of roosting pigeon have an eerie echo; meanwhile a swan cozies up to a fisherman at the water’s edge. Graffiti: “Resist antitresspass,” and “Lovely jubbly” stenciled with a face from some classic British sitcom I don’t know.[3]

It’s around this point that the college boathouses begin to pop up in earnest on the opposite bank. They look essentially like brightly painted garages, where the long, knife-like rowboats are stored and brought out for practice and races on the Cam, and where boat clubs have their bases. Rowing is a quintessential Oxbridge sport and can be highly elite (some may say cult-like 😉), but each college has its own boat club with multiple levels, so novice and elite rowers alike pour hours of energy into rowing on the Cam and on ergs (rowing machines) in the boathouses or college gyms. Rowing is another world to which I’m an outsider, though I have friends who row, so I’ve picked up a few details—e.g., my flatmate is a cox, who sits on the end of the eight (a type of boat with eight rowers) and steers and shouts coordinating instructions to the rowers. The Cam is too narrow for side-by-side racing so the intercollegiate competitions are “bumps” races, where boats are started at intervals along the lower river and then race to catch up and literally bump the boat ahead. Although every college has a boat club, most boathouses are shared, so there are just over a dozen along this stretch, as well as boathouses for non-University clubs.[4] Each one has its own architectural personality. My favorites on this walk are the old half-timbered Christ’s College boathouse and the turquoise-doored and red brick Cauis boathouse. I hear music blasting in one boathouse—someone managing to work out despite the closure of gyms.

(Unfortuantely, my rowing flatmate says there’s tension between the rowers and the houseboat dwellers, who don’t tend to have a high opinion of the rowers. Perhaps the Cam may be a bit too small for comfort.)

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Meanwhile, seagulls line rooftops and people fish or sit on benches. A dopey bulldog named Charlie with his tongue poking out leaves his owners to amble over to the nearest fishers. A swan plies the water with steadily pumping gray legs until it reaches the woman with breadcrumbs. I eavesdrop heartily on passing snippets of conversation—topics include postdoc salaries, cricket (“to be fair, he threw his wicket away”), Oxford blue vs Cambridge blue, the physics of bicycles, and one kid’s (unrelated) determination to cycle to America if the ocean freezes.

At the footbridge at the end of Midsummer Common, I turn around. If I were to keep going I would follow the towpath along the river all the way past Stourbridge Common to Fen Ditton, the starting line for boat races. Another day.

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Back at Jesus Green, I linger on the plane tree avenue to admire again the little islands of people spread across the green. The sun glows through a bright yellow hula hoop, a green trick jumprope, a red frisbee, a neon slackline. Someone’s lost key on a glittery frog key chain is propped up on a stick against the nearest plane tree’s patchy bark. Two rollerbladers and someone on a powered skateboard glide past; a guy on a road bike weaves around the pedestrians with his hands blithely free of the handlebars. The plane trees are still bare, dry spiky fruits alone in the tangle of branches, but the sun says green is coming. It feels like years—but it’s alright. We remember, and we’re ready.

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[1] http://www.cambridge2000.com/cambridge2000/html/0005/P5060859.html

[2] haha, I even found the same lure (perch): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Savage-Gear-Perch-17-5cm-01-Perch/dp/B07FKL51HZ/ref=asc_df_B07FKL51HZ/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=311166590593&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=7245798039403765244&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1006598&hvtargid=pla-592963942294&psc=1

[3] Only Fools and Horses https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUjLudIAC04

[4] A list of boat clubs and boathouses https://www.firstandthird.org/rowing/collegebh.phtml