Hotel Hit Squad: Old-school class and hot pants hip – the stylish rebirth of the University Arms Cambridge
Hard to believe, but this is the first time I’ve been back to Cambridge since I was expelled. I spent my last morning there, wearing a dishevelled ball gown, on a punt to Grantchester having been up all night at a May Ball. Unfortunately it was also the morning of my history of art A-level. “You will end in the gutter,” my enraged headmaster shouted at my retreating back as he ejected me from the school. Years later he contacted me, having noticed that I wrote for The Telegraph. “Well, you didn’t end in the gutter, I see – not even the gutter press.”
I adored my two years at a girls’ sixth-form college on the outskirts of town, but my parents’ loopy decision to send their already wayward daughter to live dangerously close to a campus where almost all the students were male (colleges were still single-sex) was not conducive to study.
Cambridge became my playground, and in those early days of the Seventies, it was not the University Arms, but Garden House Hotel, scene of an infamous student uprising, that was in the spotlight. With its slightly off-centre location, ugly fa?ade and boring interior, the hotel back then was not a venue that had to cope with my habitual garb of yellow platform boots and purple Mr Freedom hot pants. Oh yes.
? Hotel Hit Squad: 'Save me from quirky, please – at least when devised by committee'
I’m not wearing hot pants now, but I’m certainly hot. After reacquainting ourselves with the lovely Backs, bridges, quads, colleges and churches in the recent heatwave, my husband (who was an undergraduate here) and I were mightily glad of the cool, now air-conditioned hotel with its calm, scholarly demeanour and shaded corridors.
Opened in 1834 as a coaching inn, the University Arms is the city’s oldest hotel and it overlooks Parker’s Piece, a flat 25-acre city common. After a two-year closure and an ￡80 million injection, the rebuilt hotel has just opened. Gone is the ghastly Sixties Regent Street wing, though the straggling 19th-century fa?ade alongside Parker’s Piece has been retained and restored, with the addition of an extra floor for suites and private terraces that only adds to the interest of its articulated roofline.
This is ingenious, but the real triumph of classical architect John Simpson is the elegant porte cochère in Regent Street that now heralds the hotel and graciously invites overnight guests and locals through one of three handsome front doors. One is for the 192 rooms and the attractive reception lobby with its low-key, fabric-covered desk, the others for Parker’s Tavern, an all-day bistro and bar with an adjacent Library, the hotel’s only sitting room. Simpson’s intelligent, sympathetic architecture is the real deal: one senses that it will remain an important Cambridge feature for years to come.
I’m not wild about the Library (except for the brilliant collection of browsable books, curated by Heywood Hill) for while I appreciate the college vibe, it’s just not that alluring with its dark panelling and stiff leather and mahogany furniture, though the original fireplace is splendid.
The interior design is the work of man-of-the-moment Martin Brudnizki. It is his first whole hotel project, and he hits his stride in the bedrooms, painted in specially mixed shades of Cambridge blue depending on the natural light. Each has a suitably studious, eclectic feel, with books and learning to the fore. There are specially made retro desks and bookshelves, white tiled bathrooms that are luxurious yet evoke school, absorbing pictures and posters hung on chains from picture rails, and hardbacks. The Wind in the Willows (which you can also hear narrated by Alan Bennett when you enter the ground floor public loos), Hilaire Belloc’s Cautionary Tales and a Tom Sharpe novel are supplied in each room, while the 12 suites have Heywood Hill curated libraries built around the Cambridge-associated characters they are named after. The Hawking Suite is the largest, with a sweep of windows; others have private roof terraces and bathrooms in turrets; many have views over Parker’s Piece.
Continuing the theme, Parker’s Tavern is Brudnizki’s clever and charming evocation of a college dining hall, graced by an equally clever and charming menu, from talented chef Tristan Welch. The quirky list of essentially British dishes filled us with anticipation and the food did not disappoint. My tempura courgettes were honey-crunchy perfect and a rich version of “Spag Bol, a British Classic” is divine; ditto the chargrilled lobster and chips, though service is patchy. Parker’s Tavern is deservedly the new culinary and cocktail hotspot in town: old-school but hip too. My hot pants have found a home – just a few decades too late.
Doubles from ￡200 per night, including breakfast. Access possible for guests using wheelchairs.
Read the full review: University Arms Cambridge