Visit Grantchester (near Cambridge, England)

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Rupert Brooke

Recommended listening when reading this page: The Old Vicarage, Grantchester (a poem by Rupert Brooke)

The Old Vicarage, Grantchester [extract]
(Rupert Brooke, 1912)

But Grantchester! Ah, Grantchester!
There's peace and holy quiet there
Great clouds along pacific skies,
And men and women with straight eyes

Walking to Grantchester

Cows sometimes graze in the fields

The Old Vicarage, Grantchester [extract]
(Rupert Brooke, 1912)

And after, ere the night is born,
Do hares come out about the corn?

View across the fields in winter

The surrounding field in summer

The Old Vicarage, Grantchester [extract]
(Rupert Brooke, 1912)

In Grantchester their skins are white;
They bathe by day, they bathe by night

Punting on the river

Local boys swimming

The Old Vicarage, Grantchester [extract]
(Rupert Brooke, 1912)

Just now the lilac is in bloom,
All before my little room:
And in my flower-beds, I think,
Smile the carnation and the pink

Victorian postbox

The Old Vicarage

Rupert Brooke's statue

The Old Vicarage, Grantchester [extract]
(Rupert Brooke, 1912)

And laughs the immortal river still
Under the mill, under the mill?

The Old Vicarage, Grantchester [extract]
(Rupert Brooke, 1912)

And is there honey still for tea?

The Orchard in early summer

A place to enjoy a cup of tea and a scone

There are many apple (and pear) trees in the garden

The Old Vicarage, Grantchester [extract]
(Rupert Brooke, 1912)

Stands the Church clock at ten to three?

The church tower

The church clock, at ten to three

The Soldier
(Rupert Brooke, 1914)

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Memorial to Corpus Christi fellows.
The pelican feeding its young from its own blood
is part of the coat of arms of the college

The war memorial in the churchyard

Rupert Brooke's name is listed on the memorial,
next to the names of others from the village
who lost their lives in World War One

The Old Vicarage, Grantchester [extract]
(Rupert Brooke, 1912)

In Grantchester, in Grantchester ....
Still in the dawnlit waters cool
His ghostly Lordship swims his pool

Byron's Pool

Actor playing Lord Byron

The Green Man

The Red Lion

The Rupert Brooke

The Blue Ball Inn

Lonely Planet verdict: Grantchester
"Three miles from Cambridge, Grantchester is a delightful village of thatched cottages and flower-filled meadows ... Its quintessential Englishness was recognised by the poet Rupert Brooke, who was a student at King's before World War One ... There are teashops, some attractive pubs and the Orchard Tea-garden, where cream teas are served under apple trees "
(extracts from "Lonely Planet Great Britain - 2003 edition", used with permission)