Free School Lane is a 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 ...

which includes important buildings of

University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...

. It is the location of the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, the Department of History and Philosophy of Science (HPS,) the

University A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...

's faculty of Social and Political Sciences, and is the original site of the Engineering Department, and the Physics Department's

Cavendish Laboratory The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named ...

. At the northern end is Bene't Street and at the southern end is Pembroke Street. To the east is the New Museums Site of the University. To the west is Corpus Christi College.

The Free School

The name of the street comes from the "Free School" which was established in the 17th century by Dr Stephen Perse who left money in his will to educate 100 boys from Cambridge, Barnwell, Chesterton and Trumpington. This school later became the first site of the

Perse School (He who does things for others does them for himself) , established = , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent day school , religion = Nondenominational Christian , president = , head_label = Head , ...

(now in

Hills Road Hills Road is an arterial road (part of the A1307) in southeast Cambridge, England. It runs between Regent Street at the junction with Lensfield Road and Gonville Place (the A603) to the northwest and a roundabout by the Cambridge Bi ...

). The Whipple Museum is situated in the original school hall.

Friar House

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 literat ...

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 I ...

with a timber frame and pargeting at the corner of Bene't Street and Free School Lane.Bene’t Street
/ref>

References

Streets in Cambridge Schools in Cambridge History of Cambridge Corpus Christi College, Cambridge {{Cambridgeshire-geo-stub