Essential English phrases

The old division between the city's ordinary residents and the university. Still a live distinction in Cambridge, and the frame through which a lot of local politics is argued.

One of the 31 self-governing, property-owning institutions that make up the university. A college is a landlord, an employer and a landowner as much as a place to study, which matters enormously to the housing market.

The three eight-week terms. Michaelmas starts in early October, which is why the rental market empties out in August and September.

The stretch of the River Cam behind the older colleges, with the lawns, bridges and willows. Where punts go, and where the city looks like the postcard.

Propelling a flat-bottomed boat with a pole. In Cambridge you stand on the flat deck at the back; in Oxford you stand inside the boat. Locals are not neutral about this.

The Cambridgeshire Guided Busway — concrete guideways running to St Ives and out to Trumpington and Addenbrooke's, with a traffic-free cycle path alongside. Roughly 25km and the longest of its kind.

The long independent high street east of the station, and the closest thing Cambridge has to a genuinely unmanicured neighbourhood. Also the subject of a decade-long argument about closing its bridge to traffic.

A rare river type fed by groundwater, of which England has most of the world's examples. Cambridge's water is pumped from the same chalk aquifer, and the resulting conflict is now a hard constraint on building here.

The local property tax, paid by the occupier and billed separately from rent. Cambridge City Council bills you; a 25% single-occupant discount and a full all-student exemption exist but must be claimed.

Since 1 May 2026 every private tenancy in England rolls month to month with no fixed term. There is no twelve-month lock-in and you can leave on two months' notice.

999 for a genuine emergency, NHS 111 for urgent medical help that is not life-threatening. Both free from any phone.