Parker's Piece, Cambridge

Parker’s Piece is a 25-acre square of flat parkland, located to the south-east of the university campus. Local residents consider the park to mark the boundary between the campus and the city outside – so much so that the park’s central lamppost has been sarcastically nicknamed ‘Reality Checkpoint’, as it marks the point where students leave the bubble of university life and enter reality again.

The park was once the property of Trinity College, but was sold in 1613 to the city council, in exchange for land closer to the college site. A college cook, Edward Parker, retained the right to farm on the land – hence the name Parker’s Piece. The park’s heyday was in the 19th century, when it was used for first class cricket matches, Varsity sports games between Oxford and Cambridge Universities, and a coronation feast for Queen Victoria attended by 15,000 people.

Nowadays, the park is used more casually by students and local residents for picnics and games of football. Football has particular significance on this plot of parkland, as this was where the Cambridge Rules of football were first drawn up. The creation of these rules, which encouraged skill and passing and outlawed handball, are seen by many as the birth of association football, or soccer – England’s most watched and played sport.