117-732: 52°12′42.27″N 0°7′46.73″E / 52.2117417°N 0.1296472°E / 52.2117417; 0.1296472 The Cambridgeshire Rowing Association (CRA) is based in Cambridge , UK . It is the administrative body for non-college rowing in Cambridge and since 1868 has organised races such as the CRA Bumps as well as looking after the interests of local rowing by providing facilities and regular meetings to discuss issues. [REDACTED] Cambridge Cambridge ( / ˈ k eɪ m b r ɪ dʒ / KAYM -brij )
234-422: A Gini coefficient of 0.460 in 2018. Local census 1749 Census: Regional District 1801–1901 Civil Parish 1911–1961 District 1971–2011 The town's river link to the surrounding agricultural land, and good road connections to London in the south meant Cambridge has historically served as an important regional trading post. King Henry I granted Cambridge a monopoly on river trade, privileging this area of
351-464: A beaker alongside the body. Later in the period, cremation was adopted as a burial practice with cemeteries of urns containing cremated individuals appearing in the archaeological record, with deposition of metal objects such as daggers. People of this period were also largely responsible for building many famous prehistoric sites such as the later phases of Stonehenge along with Seahenge . The Bronze Age people lived in round houses and divided up
468-658: A "plausible vector for the spread of early Celtic languages into Britain". There was much less migration into Britain during the Iron Age, so it is likely that Celtic reached Britain before then. The study also found that lactose tolerance rose swiftly in early Iron Age Britain, a thousand years before it became widespread in mainland Europe; suggesting milk became a very important foodstuff in Britain at this time. (around 750 BC – 43 AD) In around 750 BC iron working techniques reached Britain from southern Europe. Iron
585-485: A European rather than African introduction. The more advanced flint technology permitted more efficient hunting and therefore made Britain a more worthwhile place to remain until the following period of cooling known as the Wolstonian Stage , 352,000–130,000 years ago. Britain first became an island about 350,000 years ago. 230,000 years BP the landscape was reachable and Early Neanderthal remains discovered at
702-562: A cathedral, traditionally a prerequisite for city status, instead falling within the Church of England Diocese of Ely . In 1962, Cambridge's first shopping arcade, Bradwell's Court, opened on Drummer Street, though this was demolished in 2006. Other shopping arcades followed at Lion Yard, which housed a relocated Central Library for the city, and the Grafton Centre which replaced Victorian housing stock which had fallen into disrepair in
819-704: A dwelling. A further example has also been identified at Deepcar in Sheffield , and a building dating to c. 8500 BC was discovered at the Star Carr site. A group of 25 pits, aligned with a watercourse, laid out in straight lines, up to 500 metres long, has been found at Linmere, Bedfordshire. The older view of Mesolithic Britons as nomadic is now being replaced with a more complex picture of seasonal occupation or, in some cases, permanent occupation. Travel distances seem to have become shorter, typically with movement between high and low ground. In 1997, DNA analysis
936-408: A few actual settlement sites are known in Britain, unlike the continent. Cave occupation was common at this time. The construction of the earliest earthwork sites in Britain began during the early Neolithic (c. 4400 BC – 3300 BC) in the form of long barrows used for communal burial and the first causewayed enclosures , sites which have parallels on the continent. The former may be derived from
1053-753: A gradually warmer climate, perhaps reaching 17 degrees Celsius (62.6 Fahrenheit ) in summer, encouraging the expansion of birch trees as well as shrub and grasses. The first distinct culture of the Upper Palaeolithic in Britain is what archaeologists call the Creswellian industry, with leaf-shaped points probably used as arrowheads. It produced more refined flint tools but also made use of bone, antler, shell, amber , animal teeth, and mammoth ivory. These were fashioned into tools but also jewellery and rods of uncertain purpose. Flint seems to have been brought into areas with limited local resources;
1170-466: A higher-level qualification (e.g. degree, Higher National Diploma , Master's or PhD), much higher than the national average proportion (19.7%). Centre for Cities identified Cambridge as the UK's most unequal city in 2017 and 2018. Residents' income was the least evenly distributed of 57 British cities measured, with its top 6% earners accounting for 19% of its total income and the bottom 20% for only 2%, and
1287-437: A mayor, although the first recorded mayor, Harvey FitzEustace, served in 1213. City councillors now elect a mayor annually. For electoral purposes the city is divided into 14 wards: Abbey, Arbury , Castle, Cherry Hinton , Coleridge, East Chesterton , King's Hedges , Market, Newnham , Petersfield , Queen Edith's, Romsey , Trumpington , and West Chesterton . At the 2019 election , Labour retained its majority. Each of
SECTION 10
#17327725788611404-407: A national average of 92.12%. Within the university, 84% of undergraduates and 80% of post-graduates identified as white (including overseas students). Cambridge has a much higher than average proportion of people in the highest paid professional, managerial or administrative jobs (32.6% vs. 23.5%) and a much lower than average proportion of manual workers (27.6% vs. 40.2%). In addition, 41.2% have
1521-582: A regional East Anglian army, which became the mainstay of the Parliamentarian military effort before the formation of the New Model Army . In 1643 control of the town was given by Parliament to Oliver Cromwell , who had been educated at Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge. The town's castle was fortified and garrisoned with troops and some bridges were destroyed to aid its defence. Although Royalist forces came within 2 miles (3 km) of
1638-540: A secret meeting of military leaders held in Trinity College laid the foundation for the allied invasion of Europe. During the war Cambridge served as an evacuation centre for over 7,000 people from London, as well as for parts of the University of London . Cambridge was granted its city charter in 1951 in recognition of its history, administrative importance and economic success. Cambridge does not have
1755-468: A settlement on Castle Hill from the 1st century BC , perhaps relating to wider cultural changes occurring in southeastern Britain linked to the arrival of the Belgae . The principal Roman site is a small fort ( castrum ) Duroliponte on Castle Hill , just northwest of the city centre around the location of the earlier British village. The fort was bounded on two sides by the lines formed by
1872-628: A third of English clergy dying in the Black Death, four new colleges were established at the university over the following years to train new clergymen, namely Gonville Hall , Trinity Hall , Corpus Christi , and Clare . In 1382, a revised town charter effected a "diminution of the liberties that the community had enjoyed", due to Cambridge's participation in the Peasants' Revolt . This charter transferred supervision of baking and brewing, weights and measures, and forestalling and regrating , from
1989-613: A village in the Cambridge district of Newnham . Following the Roman withdrawal from Britain around 410, the location may have been abandoned by the Britons , although the site is usually identified as Cair Grauth , as listed among the 28 cities of Britain in the History of the Britons attributed to Nennius . Evidence exists that the invading Anglo-Saxons had begun occupying
2106-455: Is Pippa Heylings ( Lib Dems ), first elected in 2024. The University of Cambridge formerly had two seats in the House of Commons; Sir Isaac Newton was one of the most notable MPs. The Cambridge University constituency was abolished under 1948 legislation, and ceased at the dissolution of Parliament for the 1950 general election , along with the other university constituencies . Cambridge
2223-560: Is a city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire , England . It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam , 55 miles (89 km) north of London . As of the 2021 United Kingdom census , the population of the City of Cambridge was 145,700; the population of the wider built-up area (which extends outside the city council area) was 181,137. Cambridge became an important trading centre during
2340-633: Is after the Sarsen Circle and trilithons were erected at Stonehenge . Several regions of origin have been postulated for the Beaker culture , notably the Iberian peninsula, the Netherlands and Central Europe. Beaker techniques brought to Britain the skill of refining metal . At first the users made items from copper , but from around 2150 BCE smiths had discovered how to smelt bronze (which
2457-554: Is available from before then. Palaeolithic (Old Stone Age) Britain is the period of the earliest known occupation of Britain by humans. This huge period saw many changes in the environment, encompassing several glacial and interglacial episodes greatly affecting human settlement in the region. Providing dating for this distant period is difficult and contentious. The inhabitants of the region at this time were bands of hunter-gatherers who roamed Northern Europe following herds of animals, or who supported themselves by fishing. There
SECTION 20
#17327725788612574-471: Is changing very fast and a clear picture across the whole of human occupation of Britain has yet to emerge. (Around 2200 to 750 BC) This period can be sub-divided into an earlier phase (2300 to 1200 BC) and a later one (1200 – 700 BC). Beaker pottery appears in England around 2475–2315 cal. BC along with flat axes and burial practices of inhumation . With the revised Stonehenge chronology, this
2691-433: Is completely enclosed by green belt as a part of a wider environmental and planning policy first defined in 1965 and formalised in 1992. While some small tracts of green belt exist on the fringes of the city's boundary, much of the protection is in the surrounding South Cambridgeshire and nearby East Cambridgeshire districts, helping to maintain local green space, prevent further urban sprawl and unplanned expansion of
2808-460: Is different with the paternal Y-chromosome DNA, varying from 10 to 100% across the country, being higher in the east. This was considered to show a large degree of population replacement during the Anglo-Saxon invasion and a nearly complete masking over of whatever population movement (or lack of it) went before in these two countries. However, more widespread studies have suggested that there
2925-594: Is evidence from animal bones and flint tools found in coastal deposits near Happisburgh in Norfolk that early humans were present in Britain over 800,000 years ago. The archaeological site at Happisburgh lies underneath glacial sediments from the Anglian glaciation of 450,000 years ago. Paleo magnetic analysis shows that the sediments in which the stone tools were found have a reversed polarity- which means they are at least 780,000 years old. Plant remains as well as
3042-462: Is increasingly giving way to a more complex view of the changes and continuities in practices that can be observed from the Mesolithic period onwards. For example, the development of Neolithic monumental architecture, apparently venerating the dead, may represent more comprehensive social and ideological changes involving new interpretations of time, ancestry, community and identity. In any case,
3159-716: Is likely that these environmental changes were accompanied by social changes. Humans spread and reached the far north of Scotland during this period. Sites from the British Mesolithic include the Mendips , Star Carr in Yorkshire and Oronsay in the Inner Hebrides . Excavations at Howick in Northumberland uncovered evidence of a large circular building dating to c. 7600 BC which is interpreted as
3276-474: Is much harder than copper) by mixing copper with a small amount of tin . With this discovery, the Bronze Age arrived in Britain. Over the next thousand years, bronze gradually replaced stone as the main material for tool and weapon making. Britain had large, easily accessible reserves of tin in the modern areas of Cornwall and Devon and thus tin mining began. By around 1600 BC the southwest of Britain
3393-612: Is no evidence of human occupation in Britain, probably due to inhospitable cold in some periods, Britain being cut off as an island in others, and the neighbouring areas of north-west Europe being unoccupied by hominins at times when Britain was both accessible and hospitable. This period is often divided into three subperiods: the Early Upper Palaeolithic (before the main glacial period), the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic (the main glacial period) and
3510-534: Is not established how early humans at Happisburgh would have been able to deal with the cold winters. It is possible that they migrated southwards during the winter but the distances are large. No evidence has been found for the use of fire during that period. At this time, Britain was a peninsula of Europe , connected by a chalk ridge running across to northern France and the English Channel did not yet exist. There were two main rivers in eastern Britain:
3627-665: Is situated about 55 miles (89 km) north-by-east of London and 95 miles (153 kilometres) east of Birmingham. The city is located in an area of level and relatively low-lying terrain just south of the Fens , which varies between 6 and 24 metres (20 and 79 ft) above sea level . The town was thus historically surrounded by low-lying wetlands that have been drained as the town has expanded. The underlying geology of Cambridge consists of gault clay and Chalk Marl , known locally as Cambridge Greensand, partly overlaid by terrace gravel . A layer of phosphatic nodules ( coprolites ) under
Cambridgeshire Rowing Association - Misplaced Pages Continue
3744-569: Is the only site in the British Isles to have produced late Neanderthal fossils. The earliest evidence for modern humans in North West Europe is a jawbone discovered in England at Kents Cavern in 1927, which was re-dated in 2011 to between 41,000 and 44,000 years old. The most famous example from this period is the burial of the " Red Lady of Paviland " (actually now known to be a man) in modern-day coastal South Wales , which
3861-815: The Bytham River , flowing east from the English Midlands and then across the north of East Anglia, and the River Thames , which then flowed further north than today. Early humans may have followed the Rhine and thence around the huge north-facing bay into which the Thames and Bytham also flowed. Humans in Happisburgh were in a great valley downstream from the joining of the two great rivers. Reconstructing this ancient environment has provided clues to
3978-646: The Danelaw , by 878. Their vigorous trading habits resulted in rapid growth of the town. During this period, the town's centre shifted from Castle Hill on the left bank of the river to the area now known as the Quayside on the right bank. After the Viking period, the Saxons enjoyed a return to power, building churches, such as St Bene't's Church , as well as wharves, merchant houses, and a mint which produced coins with
4095-755: The Maeshowe types. The earliest stone circles and individual burials also appear. Different pottery types, such as grooved ware , appear during the later Neolithic (c. 2900 BC – c. 2200 BC). In addition, new enclosures called henges were built, along with stone rows and the famous sites of Stonehenge , Avebury and Silbury Hill , which building reached its peak at this time. Industrial flint mining begins, such as that at Cissbury and Grimes Graves , along with evidence of long-distance trade. Wooden tools and bowls were common, and bows were also constructed. Changes in Neolithic culture could have been due to
4212-512: The Neolithic Revolution , as it is called, introduced a more settled way of life and ultimately led to societies becoming divided into differing groups of farmers, artisans and leaders. Forest clearances were undertaken to provide room for cereal cultivation and animal herds. Native cattle and pigs were reared whilst sheep and goats were later introduced from the continent, as were the wheats and barleys grown in Britain. However, only
4329-630: The Pontnewydd Cave in Wales have been dated to 230,000 BP , and are the most north westerly Neanderthal remains found anywhere in the world. The next glaciation closed in and by about 180,000 years ago Britain no longer had humans. About 130,000 years ago there was an interglacial period even warmer than today, which lasted 15,000 years. There were lions, elephants hyenas and hippos as well as deer. There were no humans. Possibly humans were too sparse at that time. Until c.60,000 years ago there
4446-403: The Roman and Viking ages, and there is archaeological evidence of settlement in the area as early as the Bronze Age . The first town charters were granted in the 12th century, although modern city status was not officially conferred until 1951. The city is well known as the home of the University of Cambridge , which was founded in 1209 and consistently ranks among the best universities in
4563-842: The Sea Peoples harried the entire Mediterranean basin around this time. Some scholars consider that the Celtic languages arrived in Britain at this time, but other elements of the Celtic cultural package derive from the Hallstatt culture . In an archaeogenetics study, Patterson et al. (2021) uncovered a migration into southern Britain during the 500-year period 1,300–800 BC. The newcomers were genetically most similar to ancient individuals from Gaul , and had higher levels of EEF ancestry. During 1,000–875 BC, their genetic marker swiftly spread through southern Britain, making up around half
4680-693: The Younger Dryas , and may have been unoccupied for periods. (c. 9,000 to 4,300 BC) The Younger Dryas was followed by the Holocene , which began around 9,700 BC, and continues to the present. There was then limited occupation by Ahrensburgian hunter gatherers, but this came to an end when there was a final downturn in temperature which lasted from around 9,400 to 9,200 BC. Mesolithic people occupied Britain by around 9,000 BC, and it has been occupied ever since. By 8000 BC temperatures were higher than today, and birch woodlands spread rapidly, but there
4797-518: The borough court. The distinctive Round Church dates from this period. In 1209, Cambridge University was founded by Oxford students fleeing from hostility. The oldest existing college, Peterhouse , was founded in 1284. Cambridge had a significant Jewish community in the middle ages , centred on what is now known as All Saints Passage, then known as the Jewry. A synagogue stood nearby. In January 1275, Eleanor of Provence expelled Jews from all of
Cambridgeshire Rowing Association - Misplaced Pages Continue
4914-672: The long house , although no long house villages have been found in Britain ;— only individual examples. The stone-built houses on Orkney — such as those at Skara Brae — are, however, indicators of some nucleated settlement in Britain. Evidence of growing mastery over the environment is embodied in the Sweet Track , a wooden trackway built to cross the marshes of the Somerset Levels and dated to 3807 BC. Leaf-shaped arrowheads, round-based pottery types and
5031-524: The mass migrations that occurred in that time. A 2017 study showed that British Neolithic farmers had formerly been genetically similar to contemporary populations in the Iberian peninsula, but from the Beaker culture period onwards, all British individuals had high proportions of Steppe ancestry and were genetically more similar to Beaker-associated people from the Lower Rhine area. The study argues that more than 90% of Britain's Neolithic gene pool
5148-484: The "most beautiful cities in the world" by Forbes in 2010, with the view from The Backs being selected as one of the 10 greatest in England by National Trust chair Simon Jenkins . Tourism generates over £750 million for the city's economy. Cambridge and its surrounds are sometimes referred to as Silicon Fen , an allusion to Silicon Valley , because of the density of high-tech businesses and technology incubators that have developed on science parks around
5265-586: The 14 wards also elects councillors to Cambridgeshire County Council , which is responsible for services including school education, social care and highways. Since 2017, Cambridge has also been within the area of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority , which is led by a directly elected Mayor . The city is represented on the authority by the leader of the City Council. The parliamentary constituency of Cambridge covers most of
5382-658: The 16th century, sanitation and fresh water were brought to Cambridge by the construction of Hobson's Conduit in the early 1600s. Water was brought from Nine Wells, at the foot of the Gog Magog Hills to the southeast of Cambridge, into the centre of the town. Cambridge played a significant role in the early part of the English Civil War as it was the headquarters of the Eastern Counties Association , an organisation administering
5499-404: The 1930s to the 1980s, the size of the city was increased by several large council estates . The biggest impact has been on the area north of the river, which are now the estates of East Chesterton , King's Hedges , and Arbury where Archbishop Rowan Williams lived and worked as an assistant priest in the early 1980s. During World War II , Cambridge was an important centre for defence of
5616-754: The 21st century, with estates such as the CB1 and Accordia schemes near the station, and developments such as Great Kneighton , formally known as Clay Farm, and Trumpington Meadows currently under construction in the south of the city. Other major developments currently being constructed in the city are Darwin Green (formerly NIAB ), and University-led developments at West Cambridge and North West Cambridge , ( Eddington ). The entire city centre, as well as parts of Chesterton, Petersfield, West Cambridge, Newnham, and Abbey, are covered by an Air Quality Management Area, implemented to counter high levels of nitrogen dioxide in
5733-498: The Beaker people of the lower-Rhine area. There is evidence of a relatively large scale disruption of cultural patterns (see Late Bronze Age collapse ) which some scholars think may indicate an invasion (or at least a migration) into Southern Great Britain c. the 12th century BC. This disruption was felt far beyond Britain, even beyond Europe, as most of the great Near Eastern empires collapsed (or experienced severe difficulties) and
5850-538: The British language differed little from that of the Gauls. Among these people were skilled craftsmen who had begun producing intricately patterned gold jewellery, in addition to tools and weapons of both bronze and iron. It is disputed whether Iron Age Britons were "Celts", with some academics such as John Collis and Simon James actively opposing the idea of 'Celtic Britain', since the term was only applied at this time to
5967-558: The Cambridge School of Art and the Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology, also has its main campus in the city. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology Silicon Fen or Cambridge Cluster , which contains industries such as software and bioscience and many start-up companies born out of the university. Over 40 per cent of the workforce have a higher education qualification, more than twice
SECTION 50
#17327725788616084-763: The Continent by a chalk ridge between South East England and northern France called the Weald-Artois Anticline , but during the Anglian Glaciation around 425,000 years ago a megaflood broke through the ridge, and Britain became an island when sea levels rose during the following Hoxnian interglacial . Fossils of very early Neanderthals dating to around 400,000 years ago have been found at Swanscombe in Kent , and of classic Neanderthals about 225,000 years old at Pontnewydd in Wales. Britain
6201-514: The Kite area of the city. This latter project was controversial at the time. The city gained its second university in 1992 when Anglia Polytechnic became Anglia Polytechnic University. Renamed Anglia Ruskin University in 2005, the institution has its origins in the Cambridge School of Art opened in 1858 by John Ruskin . Cambridge is a non-metropolitan district – one of six districts within
6318-632: The Late Upper Palaeolithic (after the main glacial period). There was limited Neanderthal occupation of Britain in marine isotope stage 3 between about 60,000 and 42,000 years BP. Britain had its own unique variety of late Neanderthal handaxe, the bout-coupé , so seasonal migration between Britain and the continent is unlikely, but the main occupation may have been in the now submerged area of Doggerland , with summer migrations to Britain in warmer periods. La Cotte de St Brelade in Jersey
6435-701: The London area. Cambridge also often records the annual highest national temperature in any given year – 30.2 °C (86.4 °F) in July 2008 at NIAB and 30.1 °C (86.2 °F) in August 2007 at the Botanic Garden are two recent examples. Other years include 1876, 1887, 1888, 1892, 1897, 1899 and 1900. The absolute maximum stands at 39.9 °C (103.8 °F) recorded on 19 July 2022 at Cambridge University Botanic Garden. Before this date, Cambridge held
6552-650: The Mediterranean region did during prehistory. By around 4000 BC, the island was populated by people with a Neolithic culture. This neolithic population had significant ancestry from the earliest farming communities in Anatolia , indicating that a major migration accompanied farming. The beginning of the Bronze Age and the Bell Beaker culture was marked by an even greater population turnover, this time displacing more than 90% of Britain's neolithic ancestry in
6669-515: The Mesolithic environment was bounteous, the rising population and the ancient Britons' success in exploiting it eventually led to local exhaustion of many natural resources. The remains of a Mesolithic elk found caught in a bog at Poulton-le-Fylde in Lancashire show that it had been wounded by hunters and escaped on three occasions, indicating hunting during the Mesolithic. A few Neolithic monuments overlie Mesolithic sites but little continuity can be demonstrated. Farming of crops and domestic animals
6786-810: The NIAB site, to 48.3 days at the Botanic Garden per year over the 1981–2010 period. Typically the coldest night of the year at the Botanic Garden will fall to −8.0 °C (17.6 °F). Such minimum temperatures and frost averages are typical for inland areas across much of southern and central England. Sunshine averages around 1,500 hours a year or around 35% of possible, a level typical of most locations in inland central England. The city contains three Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs), at Cherry Hinton East Pit, Cherry Hinton West Pit, and Travellers Pit, and ten Local Nature Reserves (LNRs): Sheep's Green and Coe Fen, Coldham's Common, Stourbridge Common, Nine Wells, Byron's Pool, West Pit, Paradise, Barnwell West, Barnwell East, and Logan's Meadow. Cambridge
6903-442: The UK, has a maritime climate highly influenced by the Gulf Stream . Located in the driest region of Britain, Cambridge's rainfall averages around 570 mm (22.44 in) per year, around half the national average. The driest recent year was in 2011 with 380.4 mm (14.98 in) of rain at the Botanic Garden and 347.2 mm (13.67 in) at the NIAB site. This is just below the semi-arid precipitation threshold for
7020-433: The ancestry of subsequent Iron Age people in this area, but not in northern Britain. The "evidence suggests that, rather than a violent invasion or a single migratory event, the genetic structure of the population changed through sustained contacts between Britain and mainland Europe over several centuries, such as the movement of traders, intermarriage, and small scale movements of family groups". The authors describe this as
7137-400: The annual Cambridge Beer Festival takes place on Jesus Green . The city is adjacent to the M11 and A14 roads. Settlements have existed around the Cambridge area since prehistoric times . The earliest clear evidence of occupation is the remains of a 3,500- year-old farmstead discovered at the site of Fitzwilliam College . Archaeological evidence of occupation through the Iron Age is
SECTION 60
#17327725788617254-439: The archaeological record, although some flint blade types remained similar to their Palaeolithic predecessors. The dog was domesticated because of its benefits during hunting, and the wetland environments created by the warmer weather would have been a rich source of fish and game. Wheat of a variety grown in the Middle East was present on the Isle of Wight at the Bouldnor Cliff Mesolithic Village dating from about 6,000 BC. It
7371-435: The area by the end of the century. Their settlement – also on and around Castle Hill – became known as Grantebrycge (" Granta -bridge". By Middle English , the settlement's name had changed to "Cambridg koe", deriving from the word 'Camboricum', meaning 'passage' or 'ford' of stream in a town or settlement, and the lower stretches of the Granta changed their name to match.) ) Anglo-Saxon grave goods have been found in
7488-506: The area, which is 350 mm of annual precipitation. Conversely, 2012 was the wettest year on record, with 812.7 mm (32.00 in) reported. Snowfall accumulations are usually small, in part because of Cambridge's low elevation, and low precipitation tendency during transitional snow events. Owing to its low-lying, inland, and easterly position within the British Isles, summer temperatures tend to be somewhat higher than areas further west, and often rival or even exceed those recorded in
7605-505: The area. During this period, Cambridge benefited from good trade links across the hard-to-travel fenlands. By the 7th century, the town was less significant and described by Bede as a "little ruined city" containing the burial site of Æthelthryth (Etheldreda). Cambridge sat on the border between the East and Middle Anglian kingdoms, and the settlement slowly expanded on both sides of the river. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reports that Vikings arrived in 875; they imposed Viking rule,
7722-537: The atmosphere. The city has an oceanic climate ( Köppen : Cfb ). Cambridge has an official weather observing station, at the Cambridge University Botanic Garden , about one mile (1.6 km) south of the city centre. In addition, the Digital Technology Group of the university's Department of Computer Science and Technology maintains a weather station on the West Cambridge site, displaying current weather conditions online via web browsers or an app , and also an archive dating back to 1995. The city, like most of
7839-666: The beach at Happisburgh in 2013 of a mixed group of adult males, females and children. However there are no human fossils found. Homo antecessor is the most likely candidate species of ancient human as there are remains of roughly the same age at Gran Dolina at Atapuerca. Homo antecessor lived before the ancestors of Neanderthals split from the ancestors of Homo sapiens 600,000 years ago. Summer temperatures at Happisburgh were an average of 16-17 degrees C and average winter temperatures were slightly colder than present day temperatures, around freezing point or just below. Conditions were comparable to present-day southern Scandinavia. It
7956-399: The beginnings of polished axe production are common indicators of the period. Evidence of the use of cow's milk comes from analysis of pottery contents found beside the Sweet Track. According to archaeological evidence from North Yorkshire , salt was being produced by evaporation of seawater around this time, enabling more effective preservation of meat. Pollen analysis shows that woodland
8073-424: The city such as Sheep's Green as well as residential development. Like most cities, modern-day Cambridge has many suburbs and areas of high-density housing. The city centre of Cambridge is mostly commercial, historic buildings, and large green areas such as Jesus Green, Parker's Piece and Midsummer Common . Some of the roads in the centre are pedestrianised. Population growth has seen new housing developments in
8190-404: The city, as well as protecting smaller outlying villages from further convergence with each other as well as the city. At the 2011 census, the population of the Cambridge contiguous built-up area (urban area) was 158,434, while that of the City Council area was 123,867. In the 2001 Census held during University term, 89.44% of Cambridge residents identified themselves as white, compared with
8307-521: The city. Many of these parks and buildings are owned or leased by university colleges, and the companies often have been spun out of the university. Cambridge Science Park , which is the largest commercial R&D centre in Europe, is owned by Trinity College ; St John's is the landlord of St John's Innovation Centre . Technology companies include Abcam , CSR , ARM Limited , CamSemi , Jagex and Sinclair . Microsoft has located its Microsoft Research UK offices in West Cambridge , separate from
8424-613: The city; Daniel Zeichner ( Labour ) has represented the seat since the 2015 general election . The seat was generally held by the Conservatives until it was won by Labour in 1992, then taken by the Liberal Democrats in 2005 and 2010, before returning to Labour in 2015. A southern area of the city, Queen Edith's ward and Cherry Hinton ward, falls within the South Cambridgeshire constituency, whose MP
8541-422: The continent, or whether a Beaker cultural "package" of goods and behaviour (which eventually spread across most of Western Europe) diffused to Britain's existing inhabitants through trade across tribal boundaries. A 2017 study suggests a major genetic shift in late Neolithic/early Bronze Age Britain, so that more than 90% of Britain's Neolithic gene pool was replaced with the coming of a people genetically related to
8658-459: The county of Cambridgeshire – and is administered by Cambridge City Council . The district covers most of the city's urban area, although some suburbs extend into the surrounding South Cambridgeshire district. The city council's headquarters are in the Guildhall , a large building in the market square. Cambridge was granted a Royal Charter by King John in 1207, which permitted the appointment of
8775-439: The east coast. The town became a military centre, with an R.A.F. training centre and the regional headquarters for Norfolk , Suffolk , Essex , Cambridgeshire , Huntingdonshire , Hertfordshire , and Bedfordshire established during the conflict. The town itself escaped relatively lightly from German bombing raids, which were mainly targeted at the railway. 29 people were killed and no historic buildings were damaged. In 1944,
8892-414: The economy of Cambridge. The town market provided for trade in a wide variety of goods and annual trading fairs such as Stourbridge Fair and Midsummer Fair were visited by merchants from across the country. The river was described in an account of 1748 as being "often so full of [merchant boats] that the navigation thereof is stopped for some time". For example, 2000 firkins of butter were brought up
9009-593: The end of this ice age during a warm period from 14,700 to 12,900 years ago (the Bølling-Allerød interstadial known as the Windermere Interstadial in Britain), although further extremes of cold right before the final thaw may have caused them to leave again and then return repeatedly. The environment during this ice age period would have been largely treeless tundra , eventually replaced by
9126-650: The first people to resettle Northern Europe , following the retreat of ice sheets from the Last Glacial Maximum , about 10,000 years ago. It has also been found in other Mesolithic remains in Germany, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, France and Spain. Members of U5 may have been one of the most common haplogroups in Europe, before the spread of agriculture from the Middle East . Though
9243-658: The following Anglian Stage is likely to have driven humans out of Britain altogether and the region does not appear to have been occupied again until the ice receded during the Hoxnian Stage . This warmer time period lasted from around 424,000 until 374,000 years ago and saw the Clactonian flint tool industry develop at sites such as Swanscombe in Kent. The period has produced a rich and widespread distribution of sites by Palaeolithic standards, although uncertainty over
9360-659: The giant Channel River . The climatic deterioration which culminated in the Last Glacial Maximum , between about 26,500 and 19,000–20,000 years ago, drove humans out of Britain, and there is no evidence of occupation for around 18,000 years after c.33,000 years BP. Sites such as Cathole Cave in Swansea County dated at 14,500BP, Creswell Crags on the border between Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire at 12,800BP and Gough's Cave in Somerset 12,000 years BP, provide evidence suggesting that humans returned to Britain towards
9477-452: The landscape. Stone rows are to be seen on, for example, Dartmoor . They ate cattle, sheep, pigs and deer as well as shellfish and birds. They carried out salt manufacture. The wetlands were a source of wildfowl and reeds. There was ritual deposition of offerings in the wetlands and in holes in the ground. There has been debate amongst archaeologists as to whether the "Beaker people" were a race of people who migrated to Britain en masse from
9594-417: The later arrival in the archaeological record of an archaic Homo species called Homo heidelbergensis around 500,000 years ago. These early peoples made Acheulean flint tools (hand axes) and hunted the large native mammals of the period. One hypothesis is that they drove elephants , rhinoceroses and hippopotamuses over the tops of cliffs or into bogs to more easily kill them. The extreme cold of
9711-484: The limited evidence available, burial seemed to involve skinning and dismembering a corpse with the bones placed in caves. This suggests a practice of excarnation and secondary burial, and possibly some form of ritual cannibalism . Artistic expression seems to have been mostly limited to engraved bone, although the cave art at Creswell Crags and Mendip caves are notable exceptions. Between about 12,890 and 11,650 years ago Britain returned to glacial conditions during
9828-453: The lower Bytham river, and not the Thames which had now moved further south. Pakefield had mild winters and warm summers with average July temperatures of between 18 and 23 degrees C. There were wet winters and drier summers. Animal bones found in the area include rhinos, hippos, extinct elephants,giant deer, hyaenas, lions and sabre-toothed cats. Sites such as Boxgrove in Sussex illustrate
9945-733: The main Microsoft UK campus in Reading , and also has an office on Station Road. Prehistoric Britain Several species of humans have intermittently occupied Great Britain for almost a million years. The earliest evidence of human occupation around 900,000 years ago is at Happisburgh on the Norfolk coast, with stone tools and footprints probably made by Homo antecessor . The oldest human fossils, around 500,000 years old, are of Homo heidelbergensis at Boxgrove in Sussex . Until this time Britain had been permanently connected to
10062-541: The marl was mined in the 19th century for fertiliser; this became a major industry in the county, and its profits yielded buildings such as the Corn Exchange , Fulbourn Hospital , and St. John's Chapel until the Quarries Act 1894 and competition from America ended production. The River Cam flows through the city from the village of Grantchester , to the southwest. It is bordered by water meadows within
10179-507: The national average. The Cambridge Biomedical Campus , one of the largest biomedical research clusters in the world, includes the headquarters of AstraZeneca and the relocated Royal Papworth Hospital . Cambridge produced the first 'Laws of the Game' for association football and was the site of the first game, which was held at Parker's Piece . The Strawberry Fair music and art festival and Midsummer Fair are held on Midsummer Common , and
10296-501: The opening of the Great Eastern Railway 's London to Norwich line. The station was outside the town centre following pressure from the university to restrict travel by undergraduates. With the arrival of the railway and associated employment came development of areas around the station, such as Romsey Town . The rail link to London stimulated heavier industries, such as the production of brick, cement and malt . From
10413-443: The presence of extinct species of vole, mammoth, red deer, horse and elk indicate a date between 780,000 and 990,000 years old. The evidence is that the early humans were there towards the end of an interglacial during that date range. There are two candidate interglacials - one between 970,000 and 935,000 years ago and the second from 865,000 and 815,000 years ago. Numerous footprints dating to more than 800,000 years ago were found on
10530-435: The present Mount Pleasant , continuing across Huntingdon Road into Clare Street. The eastern side followed Magrath Avenue, with the southern side running near to Chesterton Lane and Kettle's Yard before turning northwest at Honey Hill. It was constructed around AD 70 and converted to civilian use around 50 years later. Evidence of more widespread Roman settlement has been discovered, including numerous farmsteads and
10647-615: The process. This is documented by recent ancient DNA studies which demonstrate that the immigrants had large amounts of Bronze-Age Eurasian Steppe ancestry , associated with the spread of Indo-European languages and the Yamnaya culture . No written language of the pre- Roman inhabitants of Britain is known; therefore, the history, culture and way of life of pre-Roman Britain are known mainly through archaeological finds. Archaeological evidence demonstrates that ancient Britons were involved in extensive maritime trade and cultural links with
10764-413: The record for the all-time maximum temperature in the UK , after recording 38.7 °C (101.7 °F) on 25 July 2019. Typically the temperature will reach 25.1 °C (77.2 °F) or higher on over 25 days of the year over the 1981–2010 period, with the annual warmest day averaging 31.5 °C (88.7 °F) over the same period. The absolute minimum temperature recorded at the Botanic Garden site
10881-626: The relationship between the Clactonian and Acheulean industries is still unresolved. Britain was populated only intermittently, and even during periods of occupation may have reproduced below replacement level and needed immigration from elsewhere to maintain numbers. According to Paul Pettitt and Mark White: This period also saw Levallois flint tools introduced, possibly by humans arriving from Africa . However, finds from Swanscombe and Botany Pit in Purfleet support Levallois technology being
10998-467: The rest of Europe from the Neolithic onwards, especially by exporting tin that was in abundant supply. Although the main evidence for the period is archaeological, available genetic evidence is increasing, and views of British prehistory are evolving accordingly. Julius Caesar's first invasion of Britain in 55 BC is regarded as the start of recorded protohistory although some historical information
11115-505: The river every Monday from the agricultural lands to the northeast, particularly Norfolk , to be unloaded in the town for road transportation to London. Changing patterns of retail distribution and the advent of the railways led to a decline in Cambridge's importance as a market town. Cambridge today has a diverse economy with strength in sectors such as research and development, software consultancy, high value engineering, creative industries, pharmaceuticals and tourism. Described as one of
11232-578: The route first visitors took to arrive at what was then a peninsula of the Eurasian continent. Archaeologists have found a string of early sites located close to the route of a now lost watercourse named the Bytham River which indicate that it was exploited as the earliest route west into Britain. Chronologically, the next evidence of human occupation is at Pakefield on the outskirts of Lowestoft in Suffolk 48 kilometres south of Happisburgh. They were in
11349-753: The stone tools found in the caves of Devon , such as Kent's Cavern , seem to have been sourced from Salisbury Plain , 100 miles (161 km) east. This is interpreted as meaning that the early inhabitants of Britain were highly mobile, roaming over wide distances and carrying 'toolkits' of flint blades with them rather than heavy, unworked flint nodules, or else improvising tools extemporaneously. The possibility that groups also travelled to meet and exchange goods or sent out dedicated expeditions to source flint has also been suggested. The dominant food species were equines ( Equus ferus ) and red deer ( Cervus elaphus ), although other mammals ranging from hares to mammoth were also hunted, including rhino and hyena. From
11466-595: The town in 1644, the defences were never used, and the garrison was stood down the following year. In the 19th century, in common with many other English towns, Cambridge expanded rapidly, due in part to increased life expectancy and improved agricultural production leading to increased trade in town markets. The Inclosure Acts of 1801 and 1807 enabled the town to expand over surrounding open fields and in 1912 and again in 1935 its boundaries were extended to include Chesterton, Cherry Hinton, and Trumpington. The railway came to Cambridge in 1845 after initial resistance, with
11583-639: The town to the university. King's College Chapel was begun in 1446 by King Henry VI . Built in phases by a succession of kings of England from 1446 to 1515 — its history intertwined with the Wars of the Roses — the chapel was completed during the reign of King Henry VIII . The building would become synonymous with Cambridge, and currently is used in the logo for the Cambridge City Council . Following repeated outbreaks of pestilence throughout
11700-636: The town's name abbreviated to "Grant". In 1068, two years after the Norman Conquest of England, William the Conqueror erected a castle on Castle Hill, the motte of which survives. Like the rest of the newly conquered kingdom, Cambridge fell under the control of the King and his deputies. Cambridge's first town charter was granted by Henry I between 1120 and 1131. It granted the town monopoly of waterborne traffic and hithe tolls and recognised
11817-689: The towns within her dower lands, and the Jews of Cambridge were ordered to relocate to Norwich . In 1349, Cambridge was affected by the Black Death . Few records survive but 16 of 40 scholars at King's Hall died. The town north of the river was severely impacted, being almost wiped out. Following further depopulation after a second national epidemic in 1361, a letter from the Bishop of Ely suggested that two parishes in Cambridge be merged as there were not enough people to fill even one church. With more than
11934-637: The world. The buildings of the university include King's College Chapel , Cavendish Laboratory , and the Cambridge University Library , one of the largest legal deposit libraries in the world. The city's skyline is dominated by several college buildings , along with the spire of the Our Lady and the English Martyrs Church , and the chimney of Addenbrooke's Hospital . Anglia Ruskin University , which evolved from
12051-411: Was adopted in Britain around 4500 BC, at least partly because of the need for reliable food sources. The climate had been warming since the later Mesolithic and continued to improve, replacing the earlier pine forests with woodland . (c. 4,300 to 2,000 BC) The Neolithic was the period of domestication of plants and animals, but the arrival of a Neolithic package of farming and a sedentary lifestyle
12168-411: Was a cold spell around 6,200 BC which lasted about 150 years. The plains of Doggerland were thought to have finally been submerged around 6500 to 6000 BC, but recent evidence suggests that the bridge may have lasted until between 5800 and 5400 BC, and possibly as late as 3800 BC. The warmer climate changed the arctic environment to one of pine , birch and alder forest; this less open landscape
12285-417: Was at this time still joined to the Continent by a land bridge known as Doggerland , but due to rising sea levels this causeway of dry land would have become a series of estuaries, inlets and islands by 7000 BC, and by 6200 BC, it would have become completely submerged. Located at the fringes of Europe, Britain received European technological and cultural developments much later than Southern Europe and
12402-598: Was carried out on a tooth of Cheddar Man , human remains dated to c. 7150 BC found in Gough's Cave at Cheddar Gorge . His mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) belonged to Haplogroup U5 . Within modern European populations, U5 is now concentrated in North-East Europe , among members of the Sami people , Finns , and Estonians . This distribution and the age of the haplogroup indicate that individuals belonging to U5 were among
12519-476: Was claimed by academics that a post-glacial land bridge existed between Britain and Ireland, however this conjecture began to be refuted by a consensus within the academic community starting in 1983, and since 2006 the idea of a land bridge has been disproven based upon conclusive marine geological evidence. It is now concluded that an ice bridge existed between Britain and Ireland up until 16,000 years ago, but this had melted by around 14,000 years ago. Britain
12636-558: Was dated in 2009 to be 33,000 years old. The distribution of finds shows that humans in this period preferred the uplands of Wales and northern and western England to the flatter areas of eastern England. Their stone tools are similar to those of the same age found in Belgium and far north-east France, and very different from those in north-west France. At a time when Britain was not an island, hunter gatherers may have followed migrating herds of reindeer from Belgium and north-east France across
12753-412: Was decreasing and grassland increasing, with a major decline of elms. The winters were typically 3 degrees colder than at present but the summers some 2.5 degrees warmer. The Middle Neolithic (c. 3300 BC – c. 2900 BC) saw the development of cursus monuments close to earlier barrows and the growth and abandonment of causewayed enclosures, as well as the building of impressive chamber tombs such as
12870-688: Was experiencing a trade boom as British tin was exported across Europe, evidence of ports being found in Southern Devon at Bantham and Mount Batten . Copper was mined at the Great Orme in North Wales. The Beaker people were also skilled at making ornaments from gold , silver and copper , and examples of these have been found in graves of the wealthy Wessex culture of central southern Britain. Early Bronze Age Britons buried their dead beneath earth mounds known as barrows , often with
12987-474: Was important. It is generally thought that by 500 BC most people inhabiting the British Isles were speaking Common Brythonic , on the limited evidence of place-names recorded by Pytheas of Massalia and transmitted to us second-hand, largely through Strabo . Certainly by the Roman period there is substantial place and personal name evidence which suggests that this was so; Tacitus also states in his Agricola that
13104-553: Was less conducive to the large herds of reindeer and wild horse that had previously sustained humans. Those animals were replaced in people's diets by pig and less social animals such as elk , red deer , roe deer , wild boar and aurochs (wild cattle), which would have required different hunting techniques. Tools changed to incorporate barbs which could snag the flesh of an animal, making it harder for it to escape alive. Tiny microliths were developed for hafting onto harpoons and spears. Woodworking tools such as adzes appear in
13221-551: Was less of a division between Western and Eastern parts of Britain with less Anglo-Saxon migration. Looking from a more Europe-wide standpoint, researchers at Stanford University have found overlapping cultural and genetic evidence that supports the theory that migration was at least partially responsible for the Neolithic Revolution in Northern Europe (including Britain). The science of genetic anthropology
13338-426: Was replaced with the coming of the Beaker people. Analysis of the mitochondrial DNA of modern European populations shows that over 80% are descended in the female line from European hunter-gatherers . Less than 20% are descended in the female line from Neolithic farmers from Anatolia and from subsequent migrations. The percentage in Britain is smaller at around 11%. Initial studies suggested that this situation
13455-532: Was stronger and more plentiful than bronze , and its introduction marks the beginning of the Iron Age . Iron working revolutionised many aspects of life, most importantly agriculture . Iron tipped ploughs could turn soil more quickly and deeply than older wooden or bronze ones, and iron axes could clear forest land more efficiently for agriculture. There was a landscape of arable, pasture and managed woodland. There were many enclosed settlements and land ownership
13572-520: Was unoccupied by humans between 180,000 and 60,000 years ago, when Neanderthals returned. By 40,000 years ago they had become extinct and modern humans had reached Britain. But even their occupations were brief and intermittent due to a climate which swung between low temperatures with a tundra habitat and severe ice ages which made Britain uninhabitable for long periods. The last of these, the Younger Dryas , ended around 11,700 years ago, and since then Britain has been continuously occupied. Traditionally it
13689-543: Was −17.2 °C (1.0 °F), recorded in February 1947, although a minimum of −17.8 °C (0.0 °F) was recorded at the now defunct observatory site in December 1879. More recently the temperature fell to −15.3 °C (4.5 °F) on 11 February 2012, −12.2 °C (10.0 °F) on 22 January 2013 and −10.9 °C (12.4 °F) on 20 December 2010. The average frequency of air frosts ranges from 42.8 days at
#860139