The Guildhall and the Synagogue
This history trail audio is narrated by the poet Michael Rosen, with script researched by Helen Weinstein and the team at Historyworks. This recording is part of a series of Cambridge history trails which have lyrics inspired by 'history beneath our feat' performed by local schoolchildren, with poems by the top poet Michael Rosen and songs by the funny team at CBBC's songwriters commissioned by Historyworks. To find more trails and further information, go to http://www.creatingmycambridge.com/trails
The Guildhall lies on the south side of the market square and today is the location for many activities including council meetings in the council chamber, committee rooms and the tourist information centre.
What might surprise you is that the area close to the Guildhall and Market Place used to be called 'the Jewry' in the 12th and 13th Centuries? The Jewry is not an old and odd way of spelling 'jewellery'. Even though this area in Cambridge is indeed a real gem, the name comes from the fact that the area used to be a hub for the Cambridge Jewish community. Although the Jewry area of Cambridge was marked on earliest maps to be located around All Saints (where the craft market is held), in the early days the Jewry stretched from the Guildhall down to the Round Church. The Jewish Synagogue was beneath the very site of today’s Guildhall and next door there used to be the house of a wealthy Jew named Benjamin. Benjamin's house was eventually taken from him in 1224 by King Henry II and used as a prison. The Jewish community was discriminated against and exiled from England in 1290 and did not return again to Cambridge in numbers until Jewish intellectuals and refugees joined the University and settled between the 1890s and the 1940s. The Jewish community is now thriving and there is more than one Jewish congregation. If you look up in Cambridge you can often spot the Coat of Arms on bridges, and signs, and above doorways. Indeed its there above the door of the Guildhall. The Coat of Arms of Cambridge shows the River Cam with three ships on the water to demonstrate the important role the river played in the development of the city as a market town, with boats bringing wares to sell in Cambridge. The red roses and gold Fleur de Lys (which means lily flower in French) are Royal symbols to show the status given to Cambridge by monarchs across the centuries, and specifically the charter granting this Coat of Arms by Elizabeth I in 1575. There is a bridge with fortifications to represent the “Great Bridge of Cambridge” which is the present Magdalene Bridge.
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Most noticeable are the two red monsters either side of the Coat of Arms which are special mythical horses belonging to Neptune, called “Hippocampi”. These seahorses are symbols of the sea emphasizing the importance of Cambridge’s access to London and the World via the river route to the Wash and sea beyond!
We have a song about the Coat of Arms called “Seahorses” written by Dave Cohen. You can listen and sing along to it on the website.
If you pop into the entrance of the Guildhall there is a Roll of Honour to remember those who died on the battlefields in World War I. When the war ended in 1918 the bells of Great St Mary’s on Market Square rang out across the city and local citizens rejoiced. The Roll of Honour at Cambridge Guildhall names the 1,414 local men who lost their lives in battle, a sacrifice that the city has never forgotten. The residents of Cambridge experienced violence and hunger during the First World War, whilst local women and children had to take on lots of new responsibilities.
Further inside the Guildhall you might get to see the ceremonial chain of office and one of the maces which are held in the Guildhall as they symbolise the authority of council officials. One Cambridge mace had a very eventful history. Back in the 1640s there was a civil war in England between King and Parliament, and this put Cambridge in turmoil.
The University was largely royalist supporting Charles I and the townspeople were mostly parliamentarians supporting the side of Oliver Cromwell, the local MP. The King asked the Colleges to help with fund raising, gifts of silver and cash, but Cromwell blocked the wagons taking materials and money to supply the King’s army. Instead, Cambridge Colleges were forced to house Cromwell’s troops. His men used King’s College Chapel for military exercises. Graffiti left by the soldiers is still visible near the altar.
Everything was disrupted during the 1640s including the civic and ceremonial roles of Mayor and Aldermen, whose special mace (a symbol of representing the monarch locally), with a crown on top, was publicly decapitated. So when Charles I was executed, you can see how the Cambridge mace was also executed, a jagged edge showing where the crown was ritually hacked off with a butcher’s knife to represent the King’s Head taken off with a sword Revenge on Cromwell’s head came decades later, because although he was not King he had ruled England as ‘Lord Protector’ until he died from natural causes in 1658 and given a fitting burial place in Westminster Abbey. However, on the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660 his body was dug up and his head ended up on a spike above Parliament in Westminster. Years later it blew off in a storm and eventually was given back to his family. Cromwell’s head was then buried in a secret location nearby the Market at Sidney Sussex College, the exact location not publicly known, for fear of Royalists digging it up again!
We have a song about Cromwell’s head called “Cromwell’s Head” written by CBBC’s Horrible Histories songwriter Dave Cohen. You can listen and sing along to it on the website.