Under the Apple Trees

Saturday (24 Oct) here was overcast and threatened rain, but I was a bit stir crazy after a week in the lab. On hearing that the weather was nicer than it looked from my window, I examined a map and left in search of a place I've been meaning to go for some time now: The Orchard.

left to right: an entrance to the Orchard off public land by the Cam; the back of the tea hall facing the apple trees; chairs and tables in the apple orchard

The Orchard is a tea garden with a pedigree. Like the Eagle (a pub near Trinity frequented by, among others, Watson and Crick), famous Cantabridgians have frequented this old-time out-of-the-way tea garden in nearby Grantchester. The establishment is a bit of a pilgrimage for devotees of Rupert Brooke, an English poet who rented rooms at the Orchard in the early 1900s, with a small museum devoted to him adjacent to the parking lot.

I some of Brooke's poetry over my cup of tea and scone (with clotted cream and jam, yum!). My favorite excerpt--at first read, that is--was part of Brooke's The Old Vicarage, in which he mentions parts of Cambridge that I've been.

...And things are done you'd not believe
At Madingley on Christmas Eve.
Strong men have run for miles and miles,
When one from Cherry Hinton smiles...