North

Does the North of that storied isle begin at Cambridge? It is an interesting place, the isle of Ely where the monks hid from authority and built themselves a legendary centre of learning. Of course, that's not all true.

Yet I can't help but think, as my mind roams northward out of Londinium from the fastnesses of the old Arsenal, that there must be some point at which North must begin. North is not necessarily 'north of the border' — it is an idea, an idea of wilderness and wildness.

That's probably why the dreaming spires were never thought of as wild in that particular sense — the denizens of those halls were part of civilisation and not beyond the pale.