The Backs

About this place

Cambridge's most famous view is not seen from the street every visitor knows, but from behind the colleges: a meadow where cattle still graze in summer, the River Cam sliding past, and beyond them the stone pinnacles of King's College Chapel rising as though a postcard had been copied into real life. This strip between Queen's Road and the river, where St John's, Trinity, Trinity Hall, Clare, King's and Queens' turn their backs to the water, carries a name far too modest for it. It was registered a Grade I historic park in 1995, and in 2013 Simon Jenkins counted it among his ten best views in England. The irony is that it survived because someone refused to improve it. In 1779 the celebrated landscape designer Capability Brown proposed uniting the college gardens into one grand park and straightening the river; the university turned the plan down, and the Backs stayed as they were, a run of adjoining plots each with its own character, from Clare's clipped lawns to the near-rural meadow behind King's. Walking the pavement along Queen's Road is free at any hour, and that is where the classic shot of the chapel across the meadow is taken without paying a penny. Entering the college grounds themselves is another matter: each college sells its own ticket and keeps its own hours. King's charges about GBP 16.50 for an adult on weekdays and GBP 17.50 at weekends on timed entry (a little less booked online), and many colleges shut to visitors during exams from roughly mid-April to mid-June. The second way to see the Backs is from the water. Flat-bottomed punts glide the whole length, passing under the Mathematical Bridge at Queens', Clare's stone bridge, the Bridge of Sighs at St John's and on to Magdalene. A shared chauffeured tour, with a guide poling from the stern, runs about 45 minutes and costs roughly GBP 20-45 per person depending on operator, season and how early you book, departing from Mill Lane, Silver Street or Quayside. A plain word of advice: the sellers who chase you along King's Parade with much cheaper tickets are unlicensed; buy at the punting station or online. Punts suit families and small children well, though the pushchair stays on the bank. Spring is the season, when crocuses and daffodils carpet the verges of Queen's Road, or a September morning before the students return. On summer weekends the river fills with punts until it resembles a floating queue, and in winter the light is gone before four and the colleges close early, yet the meadow stays quiet and lovely. The railway station is about half an hour's walk; drivers will find paid bays on Queen's Road itself or can use the Park and Ride sites on the edge of the city.