Our guided tours let you discover how Cambridge influenced & inspired the world's great authors & poets. Many are still living, all are widely read.

Our professionally-guided tours of Literary Cambridge feed memory and imagination. We'll  take you where writers crafted, experimented or proclaimed their works. Come with us to monuments and locations in Central Cambridge – as well as a few secret spots…  We aim to visit at least one college site.

Choose from the following guided tours:

• Cambridge Writers, past and present:  highlights the ‘famous names’ engaged by this historic city.
  • Come with us around the environs associated with writers from Town and Gown;
  • One college site is usually included;
  • 2 hours.
• ‘Who Wrote Here?’ A tour for English-speaking and International students. Most English Literature courses include Cambridge writers.  We:-
  • Identify local features significant to some great novelists, poets, playwrights, and diarists;
  • Led, where possible, with trained and experienced English or TEFL teachers;
  • 1 ½ - 2 hours.
• Women Writers of Cambridge:Taking in locations known to Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Zadie Smith, PD James and Rebecca Stott, and their adepts across the genres: .
  • Touch on their influences;
  • and reactions!
  • 2 hours.
• Women in Cambridge: Hear the surprising, shocking, and sometimes funny, story of how women made their mark on the University of Cambridge.
  • From the medieval founders to today's senior academics, college heads, and influential alumnae;
  • 2 hours
• Book Groups off the Sofa: An informed stroll through scenes associated with:
  • Scenarios in novels;
  • spots of drama;
  • shadows of poems…;
  • Shades and vibrations from Classic and Contemporary writings;
  •  2 hours.
• Walking with the Faithful: Cambridge contains so many writers and thinkers who were, or are, followers of the major world faiths.
  • Walk where ‘prayer has been valid’ and controversy explored by scholarship, spirituality and action;
  • Salute many Honest Doubters and Social Reformers;
  • 2 hours.

It's best to wear comfortable shoes and dress suitably for Cambridge weather!

At the end of your tour we'll happily suggest suitable cafes, bars and restaurants to continue your discussions!
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About us

Cambridge Literary Tours are led by:

• Members or Associates of the Institute of Tourist Guiding, VisitBritain's 'gold standard' for tour-guiding;
• Professionals or educators experienced in the world of writing and publishing;
• enthusiasts!

Angela Brown, Storyteller and Poet, co-ordinates this initiative.

Our guides

We're all trained by trained and approved by the Institute of Tourist Guides. What's more,

• We have professional trainings relating to the world of literature.
• Teachers, editors, and academics – many stalwarts of Book Groups - can be called on.

Telephone: +44 (0)1223 860 214 [Office hours only – or Voicemail.]

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Cambridge Writers, Past and Present [2hours]

This guided tour highlights the ‘famous names’ engaged by this historic city. Come with us around the environs associated with writers from Town and Gown. We usually like to include one college site as well. We'll:-

• Admire key figures in the history of English Literature in same breath as eminent contemporary writers.
• Trace the walkways where novelists, playwrights, poets and essayist lived, ambled or scurried.
• Honour eminent, original Cambridge writers. There are so many to mention, but we'll include:
  • Adams,
  • Byron,
  • Chaucer,
  • Darwin,
  • Empson,
  • Fletcher,
  • Gray,
  • all the way to Ali or Zadie Smith.
• Discuss visitors such as Dickens and Virginia Woolf ;
• Picture imaginary students such as Sherlock Holmes;
• As we look at buildings associated with them and their circle.

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‘Who Wrote Here?’ [1 ½ – 2hrs, or as requested]

A guided tour for English-speaking and International students. Syllabuses and courses usually include writers from Cambridge. We'll show you local features which should have interested:

• Novelists such as EM Forster and Thomas Hardy;
• Poets e.g. TS Eliot and Ted Hughes;
• Playwrights for instance Marlowe and Peter Shaeffer;
• Diarists like Pepys.

What's more, we'll:

• Drop some ‘names’ from Film and Television;
• Mention our favourite author, the son of a former Archbishop of Canterbury, as we like Granchester;
• Check out the real locations for a few movies;
• Open new possibilities for reading as we touch on genres such as:
  • Science Fiction;
  • Comedy; and
  • Social Comment.
• All the way to My Beautiful Laundrette…

Where possible, our tours will be led by trained and experienced teachers of English or TEFL.

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Women Writers of Cambridge. [2hours]

Walk through lanes and locations known by world-class and gentler-flowering female writers.

• See how Cambridge influenced prize-winning women writers:
  • AS Byatt,
  • Joanne Harris,
  • Syliva Plath,
  • Zadie Smith,
  • Rebecca Stott;
• Pass colleges and churches known to stellar visitors such as:
  • Virginia Woolf,
  • Dorothy L Sayers,
  • Kate Atkinson;
• See the sites that may have inspired Oscar-winning screenwriters;
• Allow time to sense the atmosphere described by a galaxy of female crime-writers;
• Touch on the humour depicted by Darwin's grand-daughter, Gwen Raverat;
• Savour some insights of women journalists...

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Women in Cambridge

Walking guided tours with Cambridge Green Badge Guides:

• Tour duration 2 hrs;
• Maximum group size 20

Hear the surprising, shocking, and sometimes funny, story of how women made their mark on the University of Cambridge.

We'll start from the medieval founders and finish with today’s senior academics, heads of colleges, and influential alumnae.

Denied an education at the university for the first 650 years of its existence, women, backed by male supporters, faced extraordinary challenges to gain access and equality.

Early enthusiasm for change put Cambridge in the vanguard of Victorian educational reform. With their fighting spirit, alumnae of the first womens’ colleges made an indelible mark on the city and country, through pioneering civic and social activism.

But the promising start for women turned into resistance and violent protest. The university didn't award women full degrees until 1948, the last in Britain to do so.

So, who did what, along a long and rocky road? Afterall, today Cambridge women take for granted their equal rights to be learning, teaching and leading.

Why did it take so long?

This tour will change the way you see Cambridge. We'll shine a light on some remarkable characters, key events and significant places.

This tour tells a gripping, illuminating tale that will run & run. To organise your tour, please contact Ruth Meyer:

• Phone: +44 (0)7835 786 268
• Email Ruth

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Book Groups off the Sofa - 2 hours

An informed stroll through the parts of Cambridge associated with:

• scenarios in novels;
• spots of drama;
• shadows of poems…

Cambridge has inspired so much:

• See where Joanne Harris or Allison Pearson must have bicycled with their books;
• Linger on a bridge where Susan Hill – or AS Byatt - might have pondered a plot;
• Terrified by Thrillers? -
  • PD James,
  • Suzanna Gregory,
  • Jill Paton Walsh;
• Stand beneath an archway featured in Jane Gardam's writings ;
• Gaze at the gardens germane to Patricia Fara’s ‘Sex, Botany and Empire’;
• Admire the Bloomsbury set.

At the end of the tour, we'll direct you for a tea or tipple, as you wish!

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Walking with the Faithful [2 hours]

Cambridge contains so many writers and thinkers who were, or are, followers of the major world faiths. Come with us, and also salute many honest doubters! Walk where 'prayer has been valid' and controversy explored by scholarship, spirituality and action. And perhaps consider some Social Reformers along the way.

• Scholars, Reformers and Martyrs: thinking about the brilliant brains and stout hearts in many faiths;
• The Spiritual and the Poetic: in this powerhouse of poetic reflection;
• Whispers and Shouts: novelists old and new. Characters searching for acceptance in the faiths they follow;
• Hopers and Doubters: breathe in the atmosphere of:
  • Erasmus,
  • Darwin,
  • Tennyson,
  • Wordsworth,
  • Wittgenstein,
  • Williams,
  • Elliot,
  • Dawkins,
  • Hawking,
  • Brown.
• Embracing Faiths: from The Enlightenment to TS Eliot;
• Sacred Spaces and Silicon Fen;
• A jug of wine and thou - Life and Love!

The sites we visit will depend on availability and time of day.

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Prices

2 hour Guided Tours:

all our tours last 2 hours, except our children's tour:

• 1 to 5 people: £20 per person;
• 5 to 10 people: £18 per person;
• 10+ people: By arrangement.

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Contact us

Why not contact Angela to book your guided tour of literary Cambridge. Please call during normal office hours.

• Telephone: +44 (0)1223 860 214;
• Mobile: +44 (0)788 4465 648;
• Email Angela.

Please note, that mobile phone reception is not great in some parts of Cambridge, so your call might not reach Angela.

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