William Gunning in his Reminiscences of Cambridge, published in 1854, recalls a bookseller by the name of Maps:

When he first began business, he was a seller of of maps and pictures, which he exhibited in the streets on a small moveable stall: but when I came to college [c. 1784] he was living in an old-fashioned, but large and commodious house belonging to King’s College, adding to what was the the Provost’s Lodge. He had a very large stock of books required at college lectures, both classical and mathematical; and I do not believe I expended, during my undergraduateship, twenty shillings in the purchase of books for the lecture room. His terms of subscription were five shillings and and threepence per quarter, but were afterwards increased to seven shillings and sixpence. When his house was pulled down to make way for the Screen which connects the Chapel of King’s with the New Building, he built and removed to the house now occupied by Macmillan.

This was none other than Daniel Macmillan, founder of Macmillan Publishers and grandfather of the future prime minister Harold Macmillan. The house in question was 29 Regent Street where Macmillan is listed with his family, Frances, daughter of local chemist Charles Orridge and his servant Elizabeth Crissall. Daniel had been born in 1813 on the Isle of Arran and founded his publishing business after he moved to London with his brother Alexander. He died in 1857 and is buried in Mill Road Cemetery.

However, if you thought that the location of 29 Regent Street today was worthy of a Blue Plaque, somewhere in the middle of Pizza Hut, you would be wrong. The 1851 census makes it clear that 29 Regent Street was on the west side of the road. Starting with Llandaff House, the enumeration of the houses proceeds southwards from no. 4 consecutively as far as no. 31. The modern enumeration, which was introduced after 1901, also starts with 4 but continues with even numbers as far as 116.

Llandaff House, the site of modern Mandela House, typifies the confusion. Varying between nos. 2, 3, 4 and 6 Regent Street, it was once even 45 St Andrew’s Street. Llandaff Chambers was created in 1903 and the rest of the house demolished in the 1930s. The original house was a pub by the name of Bishop Blaize. In 1784, the Bishop of Llandaff, professor of divinity, acquired the pub and turned the whole into his private residence. In 1817 Llandaff House became a school run by Newton Bosworth on behalf of a Cambridge Benevolent Society. The management of the school was taken over by William Johnson and remained in the Johnson family until 1903 when it was sold to Herbert Robinson, cycle shop owner and father of David, the founder of Robinson College.

So what of the the rest of Regent Street (west side) in 1851? Well, it seems possible to match some modern properties to the old numbering going south from Llandaff/Mandela House as far as modern 62-64 (old 23-24). This happens to be today Haart Estate Agents. In 1851, no. 24 was the site of the home of William Edwards, a college butler. By 1911 no. 62-64 was F W Whiting, draper and hosier. On the way one would have passed the house (old no. 5 Regent Street) of Francis P Fenner, tobacconist and the founder of Fenner’s cricket ground. 

South of Downing College porter’s lodge there were few properties in 1851. It seems possible that the modern nos. 86 - 92 can be matched with locations of older properties by following the ownership in the censuses:

2019 no. 86. Kung Woo restaurant = 1851 no. 28  James Hammond coach maker 

2019 no. 88. CLC Christian Bookshop = 1851 no. 29 Daniel Macmillan bookseller

2019 no. 90. Cocktail Bar = 1851 no. 30 Anne Freeman lodging house keeper

2019 no. 92. Vedanta Indian Restaurant = 1851 no.31 Susan Brook postmistress and confectioner

South of this point the relation of the old numbers to modern properties becomes even trickier. Before reaching Hyde Park Corner, the old name of the junction between Regent Street and Lensfield Avenue, there is a pub called the Railway King, possibly the same as the modern Oak.

Further information, links and details of sources can be found on the Museum of Cambridge interactive map - capturingcambridge.org

The Great War 1914-18 seemed to have revealed inhumanity on an unprecedented scale. For many the established religions failed to offer a meaningful explanation for such suffering. They would turn away from traditional churches after WWI.

But for others the Great War had provided moments of sublime revelation, not only the self sacrifice shown by comrades, but their own personal experience of the divine. The war for them was Armageddon, the battle between Good and Evil. Whilst propagandists could make use of this concept to interpret the grand scale of the conflict, for individuals it provided a very intimate framework by which to understand their experiences. Testimonies to these can be found in soldiers letters. For example, there are recently published letters from French soldiers to the convent of Lisieux, the place associated with the Catholic saint Therese de Lisieux.

Divine revelation in the midst of battle has a long history in Christianity; for example the apparition of the Christian cross (Chai Rho) in the sky to the Emperor Constantine before the battle of the Milvian bridge. Therese became an inspiration to French soldiers in WWI. Living in Normandy at the end of the 19th century, she became a nun aged 15. Her devotion to Christ and a series of miraculous recoveries from illness are recorded in her memoirs, ‘The Story of a Soul.’ Therese died in 1897 aged 24 and immediately her tomb became a pilgrimage site.

A process of canonisation was started in June 1914, just before the start of WWI. It is not surprising that the war was a time of intense spiritual experience for some soldiers who, faced with death, turned towards the saint in the making. Letters released by the convent show how soldiers who prayed to her in the trenches were blessed with her apparition and soothing words. Many attributed their miraculous survival in battle to her. Soldiers carried images of Therese sewn into their trench coats as well as chains with her picture. The convent was deluged with letters about her miracles and requests for relics which were said to have stopped bullets from mortally wounding soldiers. Even German soldiers carried pictures of Therese on them. Therese was beatified by the Pope in 1923 and canonised in 1925, but had been venerated as a de facto saint well before this. Her permanent memorial is the beautiful Basilica at Lisieux built between 1929 and 1954 funded entirely by donations.

However, another WWI story of divine intervention on the battlefield is almost certain to have been fiction confounding fact. In September 1914 the Welsh author Arthur Machen published a story in the ‘The Evening News’ entitled ‘The Bowmen’. It described phantoms from the Battle of Agincourt summoned by a solider calling on St George, destroying a German army. Machen had created the illusion of a first-hand account. As a result a number of versions of the story appeared; editors of parish magazines requested permission to reprint them. Other similar accounts were published and one involved the miraculous intervention of angelic figures on the side of the British at the Battle of Mons in 1914. Despite Machen’s attempts to prove that his and other stories were fiction, the genie had been let out of the bottle and such stories became an important aspect of war time propaganda. Military intelligence may well have promoted tales to help in the fight for moral superiority.

Even such fictions demonstrate that faith was a powerful force in WWI, more so, some have noted, than in WWII. A study of American soldiers has shown that they scribbled lines of scripture on their gas masks and read poems that compared them to the heroes of the Old Testament. These men and women used their religious faith to face the war and their own personal beliefs were strengthened in the process.

Therese had written “I want to spend my time in heaven doing good on earth.” Many soldiers on both sides who survived the war and probably countless who did not, fully believed that her intervention was a reality and one which was worthy of commemoration.

Those travelling with Geoffrey Chaucer can scarcely have imagined that 600 years later they would have been remembered for all the stories they told each other while on their pilgrimage to Canterbury. But in 2019 a pilgrimage is still as much about people as places. Those you travel with share their stories, their lives, and those you meet en route will often do the same, with you personally or with the whole group.

We started on a snowy morning at Luton airport on the first of February. Enough of us to fill a sixty seater coach. Led by the avuncular Bishop Stephen (only his mother can call him Steve) we were from parishes all over the diocese plus one or two from further afield - a retired solicitor from Rugby and Manasses, a priest from Ruanda. Low church, high church, extremely high church, and the not quite sure church, a typical sample from across the C of E.

Why were we all there? Many reasons. The buildings and places we visited criss-crossed Biblical tradition and Palestinian history, ancient and modern. The ruined stones of King David's city 3,000 years old were within sight of the great barrier wall started only twenty years ago to control the movement of Palestinians in and out of Israeli controlled territory. There were remarkable people: the nuns of the home for abandoned babies in Bethlehem; the elderly Christian Palestinian ladies at a day centre who danced for us. In the evenings we met more: the new principal of the Anglican theological college in Jerusalem, full of his ambassadorial role liaising with the leaders of Orthodox, Catholic, Moslem and Jewish groups; the two fathers, one Jewish, one Palestinian, members of the group Family Circle who travel round Israel and the West Bank pleading for peace and reconciliation. Their qualifications? The loss of daughters in the conflict aged 14 and 10. 

Days were punctuated by services. Morning prayers on the bus, Eucharist on the shores of Lake Galilee, reflections at the Stations of the Cross.

Things are calmer now in Palestine than when I last came three years ago. So there are more tourists. Many more. From all over the world: Chinese, Koreans, Colombians, Poles. The major sites are a babble of different languages as groups hussle past eachother.

Perhaps that is what this pilgrimage has been most, a chance to rub up against humanity, from near and far, and think for a few days on what we all have in common. Is it curiosity, is it faith, or is it just a capacity to challenge ourselves while sharing our own stories for a few days? 

I've just finished reading Twenty Years A-Growing by Maurice O'Sullivan (Muiris Ó Súilleabháin) (OUP 1953 reissued 2000).  It is the moving autobiography, translated delightfully form the Irish by Moya Davies and George Thomson, of Maurice who was born on the island of the Great Blasket off the Atlantic Coast of Ireland in 1904. This and a handful of other books written by or for members of the Blasket Island community have become a permanent testament to a traditional way of life that vanished in 1953 when the decision was made to abandon the settlement and move to the mainland.

The island group, six in all, are off the western end of the Dingle peninsular. The inhabitants were often cut off by the elements and relied on the wild rabbits, sea-birds and their eggs for food, as vividly described in O'Sullivan's book. He himself had an unusual childhood for an islander; his mother having died when he was a baby, he was brought up in Dingle and until he was seven spoke only English. In 1911 he family came to take him back to the Blasket islands and Maurice relates in amusing details all the exploits and adventures he and others got up to. His knowledge of English was clearly an advantage to him and enabled him to travel further and communicate more widely than others of his community.

As well as the remarkable literary heritage triggered by the interest of anthropologists and linguists at the end of the 19th century who realised that the Blasket islanders way of life was one that could hardly survive much longer, there is now a large museum on the mainland overlooking the islands where those touring the Dingle peninsular can get a taste of this remote outcrop of civilisation. The islands are still owned by members of the community but there are no permanent residents.

It is difficult to describe the impact of the book without the wonderful Irish idioms and turns of phrase that have been conveyed in the translation. The book narrates the first twenty years of Sullivan's life and concludes with his journey to Dublin where he intends to sign up for military service. He skilfully conveys his astonishment as an islander arriving in a large city for the first time.

We reached  O'Connell Bridge and got out. Trams and motors roaring and grating, newspaper-sellers at every corner shouting at the height of their heads, hundreds of people passing this way and that without stopping, and every one of them, men and women, handsomely got up.

The trouble now was to cross the street. A man would make the attempt, then another, an eye up and an eye down, a step forward and a step back, until they would reach the other side.

'Oh Lord, George, this is worse than to be back off the quay of the Blasket waiting for a calm moment to run in.'

He laughed. 'Here is a calm moment now,' he said suddenly. Off we went in a flutter, George gripping my arm; now forwards, now backwards, until we landed on the opposite side.

William Gunning in his Reminiscences of Cambridge, published in 1854, recalls a bookseller by the name of Maps:

When he first began business, he was a seller of of maps and pictures, which he exhibited in the streets on a small moveable stall: but when I came to college [c. 1784] he was living in an old-fashioned, but large and commodious house belonging to King’s College, adding to what was the the Provost’s Lodge. He had a very large stock of books required at college lectures, both classical and mathematical; and I do not believe I expended, during my undergraduateship, twenty shillings in the purchase of books for the lecture room. His terms of subscription were five shillings and and threepence per quarter, but were afterwards increased to seven shillings and sixpence. When his house was pulled down to make way for the Screen which connects the Chapel of King’s with the New Building, he built and removed to the house now occupied by Macmillan.

This was none other than Daniel Macmillan, founder of Macmillan Publishers and grandfather of the future prime minister Harold Macmillan. The house in question was 29 Regent Street where Macmillan is listed with his family, Frances, daughter of local chemist Charles Orridge and his servant Elizabeth Crissall. Daniel had been born in 1813 on the Isle of Arran and founded his publishing business after he moved to London with his brother Alexander. He died in 1857 and is buried in Mill Road Cemetery.

However, if you thought that the location of 29 Regent Street today was worthy of a Blue Plaque, somewhere in the middle of Pizza Hut, you would be wrong. The 1851 census makes it clear that 29 Regent Street was on the west side of the road. Starting with Llandaff House, the enumeration of the houses proceeds southwards from no. 4 consecutively as far as no. 31. The modern enumeration, which was introduced after 1901, also starts with 4 but continues with even numbers as far as 116.

Llandaff House, the site of modern Mandela House, typifies the confusion. Varying between nos. 2, 3, 4 and 6 Regent Street, it was once even 45 St Andrew’s Street. Llandaff Chambers was created in 1903 and the rest of the house demolished in the 1930s. The original house was a pub by the name of Bishop Blaize. In 1784, the Bishop of Llandaff, professor of divinity, acquired the pub and turned the whole into his private residence. In 1817 Llandaff House became a school run by Newton Bosworth on behalf of a Cambridge Benevolent Society. The management of the school was taken over by William Johnson and remained in the Johnson family until 1903 when it was sold to Herbert Robinson, cycle shop owner and father of David, the founder of Robinson College.

So what of the the rest of Regent Street (west side) in 1851? Well, it seems possible to match some modern properties to the old numbering going south from Llandaff/Mandela House as far as modern 62-64 (old 23-24). This happens to be today Haart Estate Agents. In 1851, no. 24 was the site of the home of William Edwards, a college butler. By 1911 no. 62-64 was F W Whiting, draper and hosier. On the way one would have passed the house (old no. 5 Regent Street) of Francis P Fenner, tobacconist and the founder of Fenner’s cricket ground. 

South of Downing College porter’s lodge there were few properties in 1851. It seems possible that the modern nos. 86 - 92 can be matched with locations of older properties by following the ownership in the censuses:

2019 no. 86. Kung Woo restaurant = 1851 no. 28  James Hammond coach maker 

2019 no. 88. CLC Christian Bookshop = 1851 no. 29 Daniel Macmillan bookseller

2019 no. 90. Cocktail Bar = 1851 no. 30 Anne Freeman lodging house keeper

2019 no. 92. Vedanta Indian Restaurant = 1851 no.31 Susan Brook postmistress and confectioner

South of this point the relation of the old numbers to modern properties becomes even trickier. Before reaching Hyde Park Corner, the old name of the junction between Regent Street and Lensfield Avenue, there is a pub called the Railway King, possibly the same as the modern Oak.

Further information, links and details of sources can be found on the Museum of Cambridge interactive map - capturingcambridge.org

The Great War 1914-18 seemed to have revealed inhumanity on an unprecedented scale. For many the established religions failed to offer a meaningful explanation for such suffering. They would turn away from traditional churches after WWI.

But for others the Great War had provided moments of sublime revelation, not only the self sacrifice shown by comrades, but their own personal experience of the divine. The war for them was Armageddon, the battle between Good and Evil. Whilst propagandists could make use of this concept to interpret the grand scale of the conflict, for individuals it provided a very intimate framework by which to understand their experiences. Testimonies to these can be found in soldiers letters. For example, there are recently published letters from French soldiers to the convent of Lisieux, the place associated with the Catholic saint Therese de Lisieux.

Divine revelation in the midst of battle has a long history in Christianity; for example the apparition of the Christian cross (Chai Rho) in the sky to the Emperor Constantine before the battle of the Milvian bridge. Therese became an inspiration to French soldiers in WWI. Living in Normandy at the end of the 19th century, she became a nun aged 15. Her devotion to Christ and a series of miraculous recoveries from illness are recorded in her memoirs, ‘The Story of a Soul.’ Therese died in 1897 aged 24 and immediately her tomb became a pilgrimage site.

A process of canonisation was started in June 1914, just before the start of WWI. It is not surprising that the war was a time of intense spiritual experience for some soldiers who, faced with death, turned towards the saint in the making. Letters released by the convent show how soldiers who prayed to her in the trenches were blessed with her apparition and soothing words. Many attributed their miraculous survival in battle to her. Soldiers carried images of Therese sewn into their trench coats as well as chains with her picture. The convent was deluged with letters about her miracles and requests for relics which were said to have stopped bullets from mortally wounding soldiers. Even German soldiers carried pictures of Therese on them. Therese was beatified by the Pope in 1923 and canonised in 1925, but had been venerated as a de facto saint well before this. Her permanent memorial is the beautiful Basilica at Lisieux built between 1929 and 1954 funded entirely by donations.

However, another WWI story of divine intervention on the battlefield is almost certain to have been fiction confounding fact. In September 1914 the Welsh author Arthur Machen published a story in the ‘The Evening News’ entitled ‘The Bowmen’. It described phantoms from the Battle of Agincourt summoned by a solider calling on St George, destroying a German army. Machen had created the illusion of a first-hand account. As a result a number of versions of the story appeared; editors of parish magazines requested permission to reprint them. Other similar accounts were published and one involved the miraculous intervention of angelic figures on the side of the British at the Battle of Mons in 1914. Despite Machen’s attempts to prove that his and other stories were fiction, the genie had been let out of the bottle and such stories became an important aspect of war time propaganda. Military intelligence may well have promoted tales to help in the fight for moral superiority.

Even such fictions demonstrate that faith was a powerful force in WWI, more so, some have noted, than in WWII. A study of American soldiers has shown that they scribbled lines of scripture on their gas masks and read poems that compared them to the heroes of the Old Testament. These men and women used their religious faith to face the war and their own personal beliefs were strengthened in the process.

Therese had written “I want to spend my time in heaven doing good on earth.” Many soldiers on both sides who survived the war and probably countless who did not, fully believed that her intervention was a reality and one which was worthy of commemoration.

Those travelling with Geoffrey Chaucer can scarcely have imagined that 600 years later they would have been remembered for all the stories they told each other while on their pilgrimage to Canterbury. But in 2019 a pilgrimage is still as much about people as places. Those you travel with share their stories, their lives, and those you meet en route will often do the same, with you personally or with the whole group.

We started on a snowy morning at Luton airport on the first of February. Enough of us to fill a sixty seater coach. Led by the avuncular Bishop Stephen (only his mother can call him Steve) we were from parishes all over the diocese plus one or two from further afield - a retired solicitor from Rugby and Manasses, a priest from Ruanda. Low church, high church, extremely high church, and the not quite sure church, a typical sample from across the C of E.

Why were we all there? Many reasons. The buildings and places we visited criss-crossed Biblical tradition and Palestinian history, ancient and modern. The ruined stones of King David's city 3,000 years old were within sight of the great barrier wall started only twenty years ago to control the movement of Palestinians in and out of Israeli controlled territory. There were remarkable people: the nuns of the home for abandoned babies in Bethlehem; the elderly Christian Palestinian ladies at a day centre who danced for us. In the evenings we met more: the new principal of the Anglican theological college in Jerusalem, full of his ambassadorial role liaising with the leaders of Orthodox, Catholic, Moslem and Jewish groups; the two fathers, one Jewish, one Palestinian, members of the group Family Circle who travel round Israel and the West Bank pleading for peace and reconciliation. Their qualifications? The loss of daughters in the conflict aged 14 and 10. 

Days were punctuated by services. Morning prayers on the bus, Eucharist on the shores of Lake Galilee, reflections at the Stations of the Cross.

Things are calmer now in Palestine than when I last came three years ago. So there are more tourists. Many more. From all over the world: Chinese, Koreans, Colombians, Poles. The major sites are a babble of different languages as groups hussle past eachother.

Perhaps that is what this pilgrimage has been most, a chance to rub up against humanity, from near and far, and think for a few days on what we all have in common. Is it curiosity, is it faith, or is it just a capacity to challenge ourselves while sharing our own stories for a few days? 

I've just finished reading Twenty Years A-Growing by Maurice O'Sullivan (Muiris Ó Súilleabháin) (OUP 1953 reissued 2000).  It is the moving autobiography, translated delightfully form the Irish by Moya Davies and George Thomson, of Maurice who was born on the island of the Great Blasket off the Atlantic Coast of Ireland in 1904. This and a handful of other books written by or for members of the Blasket Island community have become a permanent testament to a traditional way of life that vanished in 1953 when the decision was made to abandon the settlement and move to the mainland.

The island group, six in all, are off the western end of the Dingle peninsular. The inhabitants were often cut off by the elements and relied on the wild rabbits, sea-birds and their eggs for food, as vividly described in O'Sullivan's book. He himself had an unusual childhood for an islander; his mother having died when he was a baby, he was brought up in Dingle and until he was seven spoke only English. In 1911 he family came to take him back to the Blasket islands and Maurice relates in amusing details all the exploits and adventures he and others got up to. His knowledge of English was clearly an advantage to him and enabled him to travel further and communicate more widely than others of his community.

As well as the remarkable literary heritage triggered by the interest of anthropologists and linguists at the end of the 19th century who realised that the Blasket islanders way of life was one that could hardly survive much longer, there is now a large museum on the mainland overlooking the islands where those touring the Dingle peninsular can get a taste of this remote outcrop of civilisation. The islands are still owned by members of the community but there are no permanent residents.

It is difficult to describe the impact of the book without the wonderful Irish idioms and turns of phrase that have been conveyed in the translation. The book narrates the first twenty years of Sullivan's life and concludes with his journey to Dublin where he intends to sign up for military service. He skilfully conveys his astonishment as an islander arriving in a large city for the first time.

We reached  O'Connell Bridge and got out. Trams and motors roaring and grating, newspaper-sellers at every corner shouting at the height of their heads, hundreds of people passing this way and that without stopping, and every one of them, men and women, handsomely got up.

The trouble now was to cross the street. A man would make the attempt, then another, an eye up and an eye down, a step forward and a step back, until they would reach the other side.

'Oh Lord, George, this is worse than to be back off the quay of the Blasket waiting for a calm moment to run in.'

He laughed. 'Here is a calm moment now,' he said suddenly. Off we went in a flutter, George gripping my arm; now forwards, now backwards, until we landed on the opposite side.