Bene't Street is a short, historic street in central

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, the name being derived from

St Benedict Benedict of Nursia ( la, Benedictus Nursiae; it, Benedetto da Norcia; 2 March AD 480 – 21 March AD 548) was an Italian Christian monk, writer, and theologian who is venerated in the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Orie ...

. There is a junction with

King's Parade King's Parade is a street in central Cambridge, England.Trumpington Street Trumpington Street is a major historic street in central Cambridge, England. At the north end it continues as King's Parade where King's College is located. To the south it continues as Trumpington Road (the A1134), an arterial route out of ...

to the south at the western end of the street.

Free School Lane Free School Lane is a historic street in central Cambridge, England which includes important buildings of University of Cambridge. It is the location of the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, the Department of History and Philosophy of ...

leads off to the south. To the east, the street continues as Wheeler Street.

History

The street is named after

St Bene't's Church St Bene't's Church is a Church of England parish church in central Cambridge, England. Parts of the church, most notably the tower, are Anglo-Saxon, and it is the oldest church in Cambridgeshire as well as the oldest building in Cambridge. Th ...

. Bene't is a contraction of Benedict, hence the unusual apostrophe in the name. The

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

tower of St Bene't's, built sometime between 1000–1050AD, is the oldest standing building in

Cambridgeshire Cambridgeshire (abbreviated Cambs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East of England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the north-east, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and North ...

. The Eagle pub is on the north side of the street. In this pub,

Francis Crick Francis Harry Compton Crick (8 June 1916 – 28 July 2004) was an English molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist. He, James Watson, Rosalind Franklin, and Maurice Wilkins played crucial roles in deciphering the helical struc ...

interrupted lunchtime patrons on 28 February 1953 to announce that he and

James Watson James Dewey Watson (born April 6, 1928) is an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist. In 1953, he co-authored with Francis Crick the academic paper proposing the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. Watson, Crick and ...

had discovered the structure of DNA. There is a

blue plaque A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. The term i ...

on the outside wall of the pub to commemorate the event. The main site of Corpus Christi College is located on the south side of the street. It also has accommodation on the north side of the street. On the corner of the College with Trumpington Street is the

Corpus Clock The Corpus Clock, also known as the Grasshopper clock, is a large sculptural clock at street level on the outside of the Taylor Library at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University, in the United Kingdom, at the junction of Bene't Street ...

, installed in 2008. The main entrance of the college is in Trumpington Street. While at Cambridge University,

Clive James Clive James (born Vivian Leopold James; 7 October 1939 – 24 November 2019) was an Australian critic, journalist, broadcaster, writer and lyricist who lived and worked in the United Kingdom from 1962 until his death in 2019.Germaine Greer Germaine Greer (; born 29 January 1939) is an Australian writer and public intellectual, regarded as one of the major voices of the radical feminist movement in the latter half of the 20th century. Specializing in English and women's literatu ...

lived at Friar House, an early-17th-century Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

with a

timber frame Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden ...

and

pargeting Pargeting (or sometimes pargetting) is a decorative or waterproofing plastering applied to building walls. The term, if not the practice, is particularly associated with the English counties of Suffolk and Essex. In the neighbouring county of Nor ...

at the corner of Bene't Street and

.Bene’t Street
/ref> eaglepub.jpg, The main signboard of

The Eagle The eagle is a large bird of prey. Eagle or The Eagle may also refer to: Places England * Eagle, Lincolnshire, a village United States * Eagle, Alaska, a city * Eagle Village, Alaska, a census-designated place * Eagle, Colorado, a statut ...

pub in the snow on Bene't Street, as seen from the Corpus Christi College accommodation above TheEaglePub-Cambridge-BluePlaque.jpg, The

outside The Eagle pub on Bene't Street cmglee_Cambridge_Corpus_Clock_night.jpg, The Corpus Clock, looking east down Bene't Street at night cmglee_Cambridge_Friar_House_from_east.jpg, Friar House and the Bath House pub, looking west along Bene't Street

References

{{reflist Streets in Cambridge Corpus Christi College, Cambridge