My new workplace – Magdalene College – is one of the oldest in Cambridge. Founded in 1428 as a Benedictine monks’ hostel, it still abides to some peculiar medieval ways and traditions. On my induction day, a tutorial co-ordinator pointed out differently carved wooden banisters in each of the old Main Court buildings. “It was done deliberately to make it easier for the tipsy students and Fellows to grope their way up the stairs and back to their rooms in pitch darkness.”
After my first High Table dinner, a fellow Fellow drew my attention to a short narrow slit in the massive wooden door of the college’s ‘Buttery’ (kitchen). “This is where the last Fellow to leave the High Table has to drop the key to the wine cabinet. Why? For the college porters not to drink it all during the night!”
Having said that, he ferreted out a small time-battered key from under his gown and reluctantly pushed it through the hole.
I found it hard to imagine the present-day college...