Generations of Cambridge children have been told what happens when the stone lions on either side of the entrance to the Fitzwilliam museum in Trumpington street hear the clock of the Catholic church strike twelve. According to who is telling the story, either the lions roar, or come down off thei plinths, or walk down the steps to drink from the ‘run’ – water running through the gutters in Trumpington Street from the brook flowing from the Nine Wells in Shelford.
In another version, recorded by a 72 year old man in 1966, the lions hear the clock strike midnight and they go inside the museum.