Five years ago nearly to the day, in August I took the Cambridge Spies Tour and enjoyed it so much I wanted not only to repeat it but share it with some of my family. As a result, four elderly men waited with others outside Great St Mary’s Church for the tour to start. Perhaps, part of a torn postcard would have made a more appropriate ticket than the downloaded and printed affair we brought with us. Particularly as our tour guide was Sophie Smiley, no relation to George, she assured us but she would say that; wouldn’t she?
As before when I went on the spies tour comments and names of people set me off researching and making further enquiries, information I have added to this report.
The Eagle pub, Saint Benet’s Church and Corpus Christi College
Our first stop was outside the Eagle, Cambridge’s oldest pub, we didn’t go in but Sophie mentioned the RAF bar and the connection to Watson, Crick, Franklyn and Wilkins discovery of DNA. We then crossed the road and entered Saint Benet’s church, once everyone was settled in the pews Sophie pointed to a small window cut in the stonework looking out into the church. She said it was there so the priest could watch the worshipers from his office behind the closed door. Corpus Christi College had been built around the church by the city. The playwright and contemporary of William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe was a graduate of Corpus Christi and was according to some sources a spy in the service of Sir Francis Walsingham the Elizabethan spymaster. Sophie mentioned the uncertainty over Marlowe’s supposed death and whether it was staged to allow him to move incognito abroad to continue his career in espionage. Also a graduate of Corpus Christi and a man who had occupied the same room as Marlowe had was, Cedric Belfrage, he became a British/Russian Double agent. Harry Shergold the British handler of Penkovsky a Russian intelligence officer spying for the west at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, also graduated from Corpus Christi.
Sophie highlighted the nature of surveillance within the city, indicating that espionage was woven into the very fabric of the university and town. We moved on from the church into Free School Lane and stopped briefly outside the old Cavendish Laboratory to discuss the important discoveries made there. Behind the laboratory is the Mond building with a crocodile motif by Eric Gill incorporated into the brickwork of the building. Ernest Rutherford was given the nickname ‘Crocodile’ by a Russian scientist Peter Kapitza. I can’t remember whether Theodore Hall’s name was mentioned at the Cavendish he was an American working there post war until he retired who passed nuclear secrets to the Russians.
Pembroke College
We moved on turning into Botolph Lane, stopping briefly to look at the Hangman’s house and then to look in the window of Bodies in the Bookshop. Our next stop was Pembroke College in Trumpington Street it is one of Cambridge’s oldest colleges founded in 1347 by the Countess of Pembroke. The college had an original statute that required students to report fellow students if they indulged in excessive drinking or visited disreputable houses.
Maurice Dobb studied here and went on to teach at Kings where he met Kim Philby, Dobb was thought to be involved in the recruitment of the Cambridge Five, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean, Anthony Blunt, John Cairncross and Kim Philby. Sophie mentioned that one of Philby’s greatest acts of treachery was to disclose a list of Germans who were hoping to rebuild Germany after the war to his Russian spy masters. The list had been shown to him by another MI6 colleague, Nicholas Elliot who wasn’t a Russian double agent. Everyone named on the list given to Russia was murdered.
A former master of Pembroke was Sir Richard Dearlove, a retired chief of the SIS (MI6). Sophie told us a little about him and also about the escape through Finland of Oleg Gordievsky, a double agent supplying the British with intelligence. He was driven out of Russia in the boot of an embassy car, the wife of his driver distracted the dogs of the Russian border guards by changing her baby’s nappy on the top of the boot of the car then dropping the dirty nappy on the ground. This distracted the dogs long enough to allow them to get the all clear to cross the border into Finland. An added irony was the man in charge of the border guard at the time of Gordievsky’s escape was a certain KGB officer by the name of Vladimir Putin.
Kings College
From Pembroke College we moved on into Kings Parade until we reached the entrance of Kings College, Queen Elizabeth the first’s, spy master Francis Walsingham studied here, he is famous for discovering or possibly constructing the Babington plot that let to the execution of Mary Queen of Scots.
Kings is also where Alan Turing studied for his BA and MA, leaving in 1938 to travel to Princetown in the USA to study for his PhD. Although his work in decoding German ciphers is said to have shortened the Second World War by two years the blue plaque celebrating his life and connection with King College is placed so high on the wall it is difficult to read without the aid of a step ladder. Dilly Knox, responsible for decoding the Zimmerman telegram that helped bring the USA into the First World War and for helping set up Bletchley Park also graduated from Kings College.
Trinity College
After Kings College we moved onto Trinity College, I know we had a look down the Senate House Passage but can’t recall now, quite how we arrived outside the gate of Trinity College.
An early cryptographer who worked for Walsingham and studied at Trinity was Thomas Phelippes responsible for deciphering the code used in the Babington Plot, used to convict Mary Queen of Scots and secure her execution. Trinity and Trinity Hall were where the Cambridge five studied, all were members of a group known as the Apostles.
Gordon Welchman, also studied here, he is credited with discovering the concept of traffic analysis which proved crucial particularly during the early part of the Second World War before the German Codes could be effectively deciphered. The method was also said to have helped track down Bin Laden.
We returned to Kings Parade and Great St Mary’s Church to end the tour with Sophie mentioning that although members of the Cambridge Five were disgraced and living in exile they were still receiving books and gifts from friends in Cambridge, with Sophie stopping outside the University Bookshop on our way back to mention this. We all enjoyed the tour and our guide was excellent, thank you, Sophie.
Fenlandphil's Blog 