Kettle's Yard
About
A quietly extraordinary house-turned-gallery near Magdalene Bridge, once the home of Jim and Helen Ede, who filled it with twentieth-century art, natural objects and furniture arranged with deliberate, uncluttered care, then gave it to the University of Cambridge in 1966. The house is kept as close as possible to how the Edes lived in it, art hung at eye level among driftwood and pebbles rather than labelled museum-style, and a separate modern gallery next door hosts changing exhibitions. It is one of the best small museums in Britain and consistently overlooked by visitors who only do the colleges.
Photos
Highlights
- ✓The house exactly as the Edes arranged it, art and found objects together
- ✓Works by Miro, Brancusi, Gaudier-Brzeska and Ben Nicholson among others
- ✓A changing exhibitions gallery next door
- ✓A quiet, uncrowded alternative to the main museum trail
Tips
- →Closed Mondays but normally open on bank holiday Mondays; the house opens Tuesday to Sunday 12 to 5pm, last entry 4:30pm, the galleries 11am to 5pm.
- →House entry is free by timed ticket; book a slot on the museum's site, as numbers in the house are limited.
- →Combine with a walk along Castle Street and down to Magdalene Bridge and the river.
Best Season
More Attraction Activities
King's College Chapel
Henry VI's fan-vaulted chapel, the defining image of Cambridge, with a Rubens altarpiece and daily term-time evensong. Book ahead; hours vary.
The Fitzwilliam Museum
The university's free fine art and antiquities museum on Trumpington Street: Egyptian, Roman, medieval manuscripts, Titian, Turner. Free entry.
Cambridge University Botanic Garden
Forty acres of university botanic garden near the railway station: systematic beds, glasshouses, a winter garden. Ticketed, open year-round.