This article appeared in the Cambridge Evening News on 15 September 1989.
BEST-SELLING novelist Tom Sharpe admits he hankers after the old Cambridge, and when his thoughts turn to favourite haunts he naturally thinks of those that have a nostalgic flavour.
Mr Sharpe, who read history at Pembroke College, and taught at the former Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology, now lives in Shelford, with his wife and two teenage children, five cats and a dog.
The places he has chosen include two shops, and two little-known historic College sites of special interest.
■ The seat outside Peterhouse where the old Rivergate was. Follow the pathway past the Garden House Hotel, towards Newnham and Fen Causeway, and it is only about 250 yards along. There is a seat at a strange doorway that has been bricked up. It used to be the Rivergate for Peterhouse, and has the coat of arms of a 15th century Bishop of Ely. The river Cam used to pass by this wall before it was diverted in ancient times. The monks used to come in the gate in flat-bottomed boats from Ely.
■ Campkins Camera Exchange, Kings Parade, Cambridge. As a keen photographer, Tom Sharpe likes to browse around old cameras. The shop stocks hundreds of cameras, the majority second-hand. They have a Kodak that dates from 1898.
■ The site of the Language Research Unit, Millington Road, Cambridge, and the now-defunct Adies Museum, where only old carved wooden doors remain. Mr Sharpe once rented a shed behind the research unit and it was there he wrote “Blott on the Landscape”, “Wilt”, and “The Great Pursuit”. He used to cycle the three miles to the shed from his home in Highfield Avenue, with his border terrier in the bike basket. The cycle ride took him across Jesus Green, The Millpond, Laundress Green, and Coe Fen, to Newnham. It remains one of his favourite cycle rides.
■ The black chunk wall of Corpus Christi College opposite the Old Cavendish laboratories, in Free School Lane. Mr Sharpe says the wall is symbolic of old Cambridge. It is the original walling of the East Range of the Old Court of the College, and parts date from the late 14th century.
■ Heffers bookshop, Trinity Street. Many of Cambridge’s older inhabitants remember Heffers when it was much smaller and situated where the Lion Yard now is. Heffers moved to Petty Cury from Fitzroy Street in 1896 and was there until 1970 when it moved to Trinity Street, a short time before the site was demolished to make way for the Lion Yard.