Canal built for Ball
Chamari Senanayake
I have been to many Balls with many themes like Masquerade, Fairy
Tales, Bush Bash and such, but never to a ball that my college had to
create a whole new canal inside the University. That’s what students at
Sydney Sussex College at Cambridge University did for their May Ball
(which was held in June). Sydney Sussex, which is one of the few
Cambridge University colleges not set on the river, created a 200m canal
to allow them to punt at their May Ball.
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The Canal and the surrounding looked spectacular on the Ball
day. Picture Geoff Robinson Photography |
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This is how the court normally looks in an ordinary day.
Pictures Alamy |
A team of undergraduates at Sydney Sussex spent a week building the
incredible canal, which held a massive 88,000 gallons of water and
snaked through even the 16th Century college courts.
Two PhD students spent months designing the river and it took a team
of 10 more than a week to build.
Students have spent £5,000 making the U-shaped canal, which was
constructed with scaffolding and plastic lining.
The Ball, which had a Venetian theme, allowed guests even to punt
along the fake waterway, which flowed into a huge lake in the centre of
the ancient college. President of the May Ball committee, said: ‘Other
colleges in Cambridge have punting along the river, but we can’t do that
so we decided to build our own waterway.’
And that’s exactly what they did. Eight punts were on hand on the
Ball night to chauffeur the 1200 guests down the canal to the massive 20
metre by 20 metre lake, which took up entire court in front of the
dining hall. The rest of the college was decorated to look like
historical Venice.
Tickets for the ball cost £110 and guests were treated to lavish
Italian food, chocolate fountains and continental cakes. The canal was
dismantled soon afterwards |
