City and Suburban
BY JOHN BETJEMAN IHAVE an impression that Cambridge today is rad.91::. like . what Oxford must have been in the 1831 Religion is in the air and angels' wings seem to be beatnill above that beautiful, invigorating and still unspo1c+1 university. My friends there are mostly agnostics of my ov+ Al generation and I find them a little disturbed by the change from the .days of our youth. Agnosticism has acquired n venerability, associated with high principles and consistencY. rather like that which clung about those older dons at Oxford in my own day who were still Tractarian. The religion ot Cambridge is not, I gather, all .Fundainentalist and Evorr gelical. It is often a moderate form of Anglo-Catholicism—in fact 'C. of E.'. Mervyn Stockwood, I am told, fills Great St. Mary's. College chaplains fill their chapels, and I was told of a conversation overheard between two typical Pitt Club members walking down King's Parade. One said to the other, 'The trouble is, all the best sermons are on at the same time; In my day, it would have .beeri films not sermons, or mac probably parties. On Ascension Day morning I was able to witness some proof of what I had been hearing. I crossed from Christ's, where I was staying, to the nearest church where there would be a Communion service in time for tie to catch an early train. This was St. Andrew the Great, 1+1l(11. the bells were ringing for a Sung Communion at „ 7.15. thought they must be enthusiastic ringers indeed to get lir as early as this. The nave was quite full and most of 1.ie aisles too. The people were of all types and both sexes, you+11 predominating. The service was not particularly 'high.'
CASUALTY LIST The demolishing season has started and is now in progre at the following buildings : LEE HALL, GATEACRE, LIVERPOOL. It is an elegant, Classi‘ building of about 1780, in brick with stone dressings. Ins' are twin horseshoe-shaped stairs.
WARNFORD PARK, south-east of Winchester. Large Georgian and Classical.
SCRIVELSBY COURT, LiNcs. A medley of all periods fro mediaeval to Victorian, and the home of the Dymoki hereditary Champions. FINESHADE ABBEY, NORTHANTS. Large and handsome' stc Georgian.
Shortly to be demolished : MORETON MILL, ESSEX. Scheduled as an Ancient Monulliel but allowed to go into disrepair. BRYN-Y-PYS. A large brick-stone terracotta country ha of 1883 in the detached part of Flintshire. Its date , unfashionable though its architecture is meritorious. T1 eighteenth-century stables are to be retained.
WOTTON HOUSE, AYLESBURY, BUCKS. This is a very gram place, built in 1707, with twin pavilions to its main bloc which was gutted about 1820 and rebuilt inside by Soall
CAMS HALL, FAREIIAM, HANTS. 1771. 1 have described It beautiful building in an earlier issue.
`MR. HARDING, PLEASE. .
It IS extraordinarily difficult to know quite where the boundary is between decency and indecency when one is taW' ing to an aquaintance. Mr. Gilbert Harding gave me an interest' ing instance. A lady was telling him of her daughter who Os a nurse, and who had written to say that there was a little bc in the hospital where she worked with only half a bladder' 'How terrible,' he said. 'I've never heard of half a bladder' though of course I have heard about floating kidneys.' I° which she replied, 'Mr. Harding, please. . .
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