Pink Floyd and Cambridge

Granchester Meadows

The shared history of Pink Floyd's three chief protagnists - Syd Barrett, Roger Waters and David Gilmour - is revocably tied to the city of their youth.

Cambridge's reputation as a seat of learning began as early as the thirteen centruy. With the striking architecture of it's colleges and the River Cam winding it's way through the city, it retains a traditional English quality. Yet as a counterpoint to the quaintness, the landscape around the city comprises rugged fenland. The atmosphere seeped into Pink Floyd's music from the start. The title of the group's first album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn was taken from The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahames's 1908 children's novel set on a riverbank. In the chapter of the same name, two of the book's animal characters embark on a bizzare spiritual quest. 'Granchester Meadows', Roger Waters softly interlude on the band's Ummagumma album, was named after the beautiful, heavily wooded riverbank area tucked towards the south of the city, near David Gilmour's family home.

At the time of the three principal Floyds' arrival into the world, Cambridge was, as one of their childhood peers now describes it, 'a place where licensed eccentricity was considered permissible. ... Syd's father was a familar, eccentric figure, often to be seen cycling on an upright bicycle down Hills Road.

From the book

Pigs Might Fly The Inside Story of Pink Floyd by Mark Blake

The Gnome