The Bridge of Sighs

What is it with "The Bridge of Sighs" you might like to ask?

I thought it might be a good idea to recount on my recent 12 days journey from Salford, to Cambridge, to the Cotswold, to South Wales and back to Salford starting with "The Bridge of Sighs".

I was in Cambridge for six nights, and stayed at one of the guest rooms at St. John's College for part of the stay. I had access to the private routes that tourists have limited access to, and one of these private places is the bridge. The photo above shows the openings and bars placed across, from inside the bridge, and the photo below shows the view, from the bridge, towards the 1960s part of St. John's College and people on the punts in the river, on that cold but sunny day. (Rendering by Adobe Photoshop for many illustrations shown in this post).





The bridge was built in 1831 during the early Victorian era, connecting the New Court with the Third Court. The first three courts of St. John's College, consisting of three cloisters of fine bricked buildings from the Tudorian era whereby, the New Court imitated the Tudorian flavour using stonework mostly, embellished with castellated motifs on the turrets and towers and the ribbed vaulting made of timber on the corridor's ceilings. This practice was common in the Victorian era. (See link.) This is shown in the photos below, the first showing one of the turrets of the New Court and the second is the corridor leading to the bridge.





The bridge is often referred to Venice's Bridge of Sighs or Ponte dei Sospiri, which is believed to be the inspiration. In the original version the sighs were coming from prisoners who were crossing the bridge in penitence. Hence the name. I wondered why the St. John's College version was named as such. They did name it "The New Bridge" in the beginning, and not "The Bridge of Sighs". Well, I am not sure whether the name is official or not. But it is fondly referred to as the latter, and it is the name used on their website.



Are the myth-makers trying to be "Romantic" either in the architectural style sense or alluding to the "lovers' sighs" variety? It is hard to imagine when you are in the narrow bridge which acts as a corridor, really... the thick bars placed on the windows alluded more to the "prisoners' sighs" as suggested in the Venice version rather than "lovers' sighs", or perhaps, we can all sigh heavily at the thought of being "prisoners in love"... I don't know. Do you?

The photo below shows the bleak and dark corridor further down, off the nicer middle bit of the bridge, but those bars... hmm? The start of a journey is always the middle of nowhere, I suppose...