On your left, at this gate, you’re standing on ground that once worked a lot harder than it looks. For sixty-three years, this was the yard of the George Inn, Thomas Hobson’s base on Trumpington Street... the busiest carrier yard in Cambridge. From here, wagons set out regularly for London, heading by way of Ware to the Bull at Bishopsgate, a three-day run each way, hauling mail, parcels, books, students’ letters home, and sometimes the students themselves.
Hobson inherited the business in fifteen sixty-eight and kept a stable of about forty horses, far more than the post required, because Cambridge scholars always wanted to hire a mount. His rule was beautifully blunt: you took the horse next to the stable door, or none at all. There it is... Hobson’s choice. Not freedom, exactly. More a well-organized lack of options.
His business survived a near-century of plague, weather, and the worst potholes the road to Ware could offer - until the great plague of sixteen thirty grounded him, and the carts stopped for good. You'll have heard the rest of his story walking up here.
The college behind the gate came earlier, founded in fourteen seventy-three by Robert Wodelarke, but this Main Court rose later, between sixteen seventy-three and seventeen oh four, after older buildings came down.
Walk a couple of minutes south down Trumpington Street. On your right, look for the Tudor-Gothic building with battlements and a lattice oriel - a little projecting window - above the door: the Pitt Building.
