Climbing King's College Chapel

After church today, I left the hubbub of students hovering around the pasta-bake they serve post-service, and meandered through the market, picking up a vegan curry and rice box and looking at the bread in the 'The Earth's Crust' shop and the home-made candles in the shop beside it and the fish in the shop beside it which reminded me of the wet market in Ghim Moh. I was very happy - I had my curry, my camera and my copy of Jeanette Winterson's 'Oranges are not the only fruit' which I sat reading on the ledge beside King's college as I had an apple and then my curry and then half an unripe-pear (I felt so terrible throwing it away because I googled 'What happens when you eat unripe pear?' and the effects didn't seem too drastic and I could've eaten the whole thing if I really tried but it tasted so sour.) 

After that, I got directions from a porter to Kings College's North entrance. I realise I've skipped ahead a few chapters and no one knows why I was going to Kings College. Well, during the fresher's societies fair, I signed up to the Cambridge Humanities Review, which gave me a magazine subscription and the chance to enter a lucky draw. The prize of the lucky draw was a tour of the Kings Chapel with Professor Jean Michel Massing, Director of Studies of History of Art for Kings College. Because I have terrible luck with lucky draws, I didn't win.

But, because I have a big, good God who also has a funny sense of humour, I received an email which told me first that

1) Unfortunately, the draw has closed and you haven't been picked

2) However, someone who was picked has dropped out and would Miriam like to come instead?

And, no surprises, she said yes!

We met the professor, a man with lovely smile lines and fluffy white hair, outside the chapel, and he said 'Follow me!' and walked onto the grass lawn so we could have a view of the chapel while he explained it's exterior.

And so the first miracle happened that day, which was that, despite not being a fellow, we got to walk on the FORBIDDEN King's College Grass (with a capital G)!!!

While we were on the lawn, a couple of tourists wandered onto the grass too and were promptly told to please keep off the grass while Dr Massing told us how we could tell from the different colour of stone that the chapel was built over a long period of time - over a century in fact! He also pointed out the metal spikes that had been installed at a much later date to stop students from climbing the chapel exterior (I don't know how anyone would be able to do that!) to get to the chapel roof. One person in the group asked 'Have you ever climbed the chapel?'

And he cheekily replied, 'That is a question I am not going to answer!'

We went inside and he explained that we were going to climb to the cavity between the fan vault and the roof of the chapel. Before we climbed, we had to leave all our bags in an office and then sign our names so that if we slipped and fell and died the chapel wouldn't be responsible.

The stairway was narrow and curling and each step was worn down by years of footsteps 'and water' Dr Massing pointed out. At some points it became pitch dark and it was only by that strange prickly sense that you are near another being that you avoided bumping into the person in front of you.

We reached the vault level - already we were high above the roof tops of the rest of the city, which we could see through grilled windows of the chapel.

Dr Massing explained that the fan vault is largest one in existence, and that the architects who built the wooden roof overhead were the same men who would've built boats, which was why the timber skeleton of the roofs underbelly looked just like the bones of a sailing ship. He also pointed out how men would carve their sign into stones, as a way of marking their effort so that they could later claim payment. He also explained the reason why the chapel could remain standing for so long without cement - due to the position of the rocks and how they worked together and against each other. It was something to do with the physics of the stones, which I didn't quite understand! There was years of graffiti on the walls, which just added to the history of the place. There were little holes in the floor of the vault, and if you peered through them as we all did, you would get a gut-wrenching, swooping view of the cathedral below you. It gave me such a funny feeling to know that there were so many people in the chapel preparing for service, looking around as tourists, maybe gazing up at the magnificent fan vault above them and not guessing that there were 10 people walking in the air above their heads!

I expected we would go down after that, but Dr Massing led us up another flight of stairs and we emerged -  on the roof of the college chapel! The view was breath taking, and just the experience of being on one of the most historical buildings in Cambridge and looking down at the same houses the stones of the chapel had overseen for years was incredibly humbling.

Dr Massing suggested we go over to the other side. The only way there was by going over the roof, which had a ladder stretched up and down each of its sides. Dr Massing told us quite firmly that we had to keep our hands and feet on the ladder and be very very careful - and then walked over the ladder as if it were flat ground. 'I'm old so it's okay if I die,' he quipped.

At the top of the roof, I stopped and just breathed in the moment. I've always liked heights, and I've fallen in love with this city that will be home for the next three years, and to just look at it from above, the same way God or Auntie Sheila watches me daily as I go about in Cambridge was a gift from heaven itself.

On the other side, Dr Massing (who, when I asked him a question ' Professor...?' told me to call him Jean-Michel) told us that he knew every building you could see. I couldn't name more than 5, especially because buildings look so different from the top than they do as you walk into them to buy oats and bananas. I wondered how many times Dr Massing had been on the roof of the chapel (and if he had climbed the exterior to get to it - he's already admitted that he was an alpinist) He also pointed out a sweet little roof garden and, grinning wickedly, said 'That is a private cannabis plantation by a fellow of the college.' He was only joking, of course.

One last wide-eyed look, and then we descended into the warmth and normality of ground level again. As I walked out of the chapel, I kept thinking, I could be walking on the street any day, and I would never know that the person walking beside me has just climbed the Kings College Chapel, or has just heard that his wife is pregnant, or has just watched the best movie she's ever seen. How strange are the relationships between strangers!

After that, I bought a disgusting amount of groceries from the market place and Sainsbury's - so much that I was really struggling to carry it all back in my box. (I bought two cartons of soup, a bag of rice, 2 bunches of bananas, a couple of punnets of berries, and 3 bags of rolled oats, among other things...) Thankfully, as I was balancing my box against the traffic light stand, trying to give my arms a little rest, a kind stranger beside me offered to help carry it for me. I would usually say it's okay, since it's good exercise and I don't like burdening (in this case literally) other people. However, I was so exhausted (shaky arms exhausted) that I gratefully accepted, and we walked up the hill together. (thankfully it was a guy who goes to St Edmunds, so his college was up the hill as well)

I found out that he was from New York, finishing a Phd in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, and doesn't know how to cook oatmeal. However, he does know most of the east asian languages and qigong, and a shorter route to Sidgwick site which he showed me on his phone map (which is in japanese) after he delivered me to college. He also offered to show me qigong which apparently stops you from feeling cold or warm and just makes you impervious to changes in temperature I suppose, but when he asked me to stretch out my left hand it was shaking too much from muscle fatigue and so I said the shaking would probably interfere with whatever force they use in qigong.

Back in college, I've just made a big bowl of vegetable stew and rice (enough for three meals, so I save on cooking time!) and a tray of granola which I keep snacking on as I write this post. I've got to go and write an essay on Dickens now, but I feel like my head is still up in the clouds on the Kings college chapel roof...