CAMBRIDGE - The drizzle kept falling. Cambridge seemed to be weeping as thousands of citizens and visitors gathered on Saturday in respectful mourning silence outside the university church, Great St May's.

Up to 500 families members, friends and colleagues attended the private funeral service after the legendary British physicist professor Stephen Hawking's coffin was carried through Cambridge's main King's Parade street into the church.

The solid oak coffin, carried by by six porters all in formal black uniform, was covered by an arrangement of white lilies, which represent the universe, and white roses symbolizing the polar star.

The private service, officiated by the Reverend Dr. Cally Hammond, dean of Gonville and Caius College, Hawking's academic home, was described as "both inclusive and traditional, reflecting the breadth and diversity of his life," according to a statement by Hawking's children.

Also among those inside the church was Eddie Redmayne, who played the role of professor Hawking in the 2014 biographical drama The Theory of Everything.