Portraits of monarchs and scientists from centuries past grace the wood-panelled walls of Cambridge college halls, gazing down at today’s fellows and their guests dining by candlelight while butlers serve wine in silver goblets. Cambridge is not a university that stints on the history — which is little wonder, given that it predates Gutenberg’s printing press.
Yet it is far from fusty. The sleek and contemporary lines of sophisticated laboratories and offices springing up within and beyond the city’s limits contrast with the ornate stonework which tourists come to admire and undergraduates take for granted.
Billion-dollar multinationals, such as Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and AstraZeneca, have piled in to make their home in “Silicon Fen”, while fledgling ventures are welcomed and encouraged. The new and speculative rubs shoulders with the established and thriving.