The Cambridge Colleges - Part Three

Sidney Sussex College

Sidney Sussex was the last Cambridge college to be founded until the establishment of Downing in 1800. It was built on the site of a 13^th century friary which had been suppressed in 1538, the stones being used in the construction of Henery VIII's new foundation, Trinity College. In 1589 Lady Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex, bequeathed two-fifths of her estate to found a new college. The site was eventually acquired, after strong resistance from it owners Trinity College, in 1594. and the first stone was laid a year later.

Most of the original buildings still survive, but were refaced by Sir Jeffery Wyatville in the early 19th century. No one has ever much liked his work, but he succeeded ingeniously in making two regular courts and a gateway out of a rather random group of buildings. Sidney’s Tudor turrets and battlements are a typical product of the Romantic vogue for medics al life and architecture.

In 1616 Oliver Cromwell entered the college, leaving a year later on the death of his father. Sidney Sussex did not however, display any Parliamentarian sympathies as a result of his brief membership: when Civil War broke out the college sent £100 to the king, and Dr Ward, the master, was imprisoned for his refusal to make any contribution to the Parliamentarian cause. In 1960 the college was given a macabre relic of its most famous student in the form or Cromwell's head. This had been removed from his body when Charles II ordered that the bodies of leading Parliamentarians be dug up and destroyed. The head was buried in the chapel, in conditions of great secrecy, and only a few people know its location.

Trinity College

Its combination of intellectual distinction, architectural splendour and immense wealth gives Trinity pre-eminence amongst the colleges of Cambridge. In 1546 Henry VIII united two existing colleges, Michaelhouse (founded 1323) and King's Hall (founded by Edward III in 1336) to create a new college that would rival Christ Church, Oxford, founded by his now discredited Chancellor Wosely. At this date the college possessed only two buildings worthy of such aspirations: the present clock tower, with its statue of Edward III, erected between 1426 and 1437 (the first of Cambridge's many gatehouses), and Great Gate, through which the visitor enters the college from Trinity Street. Completed in 1533, this was built to the orders of Henry VIII and bears his statue over the entrance.

The present grandeur of the college is due almost entirely to its late 16th-century master Thomas Nevile, a favourite of Elizabeth land a very rich man. Largely at his own expense he cleared what is now Great Court of a muddle of buildings and moved the clock tower to its present position at the west end of the chapel (built in the previous reign by Queen Mary). He then erected, for the sake of symmetry — though nothing in Great Court is straight or symmetrical—a tower on the opposite side of the court, bearing a statue of Elizabeth I. (On an adjoining staircase lived HRH the Prince of Wales, son of Elizabeth II, whilst an undergraduate at Trinity.) Nevile also built the hall, the largest in Cambridge, and the fountain which formerly supplied the college with its drinking water and remains the focal point of this huge court — the largest court in Cambridge and larger than any at Oxford.

Beyond the hall Nevile constructed a new court (now named after him) with an elegant semi-classical cloister. Initially open to the river, it was enclosed by the addition of a new library (1676-95), designed by Sir Christopher Wren and now called the Wren Library: this is one of his finest works and one of the great buildings of Cambridge. Originally it was to be circular, but m its final form it owes much to the inspiration of Sansovino’s famous library in Venice. From the outside it is difficult to realise its monumental size because the exterior is so devised as not to overpower the restrained proportions of Nevile.s buildings. Wren placed the floor of the library not above the arches (as it appears from the outside) but below them, filling in the tops of the arches with carved lunettes to disguise this fact — as he himself explained, to give ‘the appearance of arches as the order required fair and lofty'. This trick has given the library a very spacious and well-lit interior. Wren took great trouble over its fittings, even designing the stools and revolving reading tables himself. The lavish carving in limewood which decorates the bookcases is by Grinling Gibbons, and there is a fine series of busts by Roubiliac at the bookcase ends. Treasures from the library usually on display include splendid illuminated manuscripts, a large series of early editions of Shakespeare, autograph drafts of Milton's early poems, Newton's domestic accounts and the manuscript of Winnie the Pooh.

Further 17th-century building was in a very different idiom: Bishop's Hostel, on the left of the entrance from Trinity Lane, is a charmingly domestic and uncollegiate-looking structure. The elegant 18th-century bridge, designed by James Essex, was incorporated in an avenue of lime trees that leads to William Wilkins' New Court in the early-19th-century Gothic style. In his poem In Memoriam Tennyson recalls walking down this avenue to revisit the rooms in which his friend Hallam had lived when they were both undergraduates at Trinity. The ante-chapel contains statues and other memorials commemorating some of Trinity's famous students. Outstanding is Roubiliac's superb statue of the great scientist Sir Isaac Newton, who spent his academic life at Trinity (1661-96). There are also statues of Sir Francis Bacon, Macaulav and Tennyson. More recent names occur on the brass wall-plaques: the philosophers A. N. Whitehead, Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein, and many eminent scientists (for Trinity boasts over 20 Nobel Prize winners — more than the total produced by many entire countries). A number of famous poets also studied i at Trinity, including Dryden, Herbert and Marvell, but the most famous of them must be Byron. His statue (rejected by Westminster Abbey) stands in the library, perhaps rather inappropriately for a man who was known at Cambridge for keeping a bear in his rooms rather than for his academic pursuits!

Trinity Hall

Trinity Hall's name is likely to confuse the Visitor. Many of the first Cambridge colleges were called halls. 'College' meant the people who lived in the hall. Soon the word acquired its modern meaning (without entirely losing its old one) and became indistinguishable from the word 'hall'. By the 19th century most of the old halls, such as Pembroke Hall and St Catharine's Hall, had adopted the name 'college', but this was impossible for Trinity Hall because a Trinity College already existed. Thus, uniquely amongst the colleges of Cambridge, it retains its old name.

Trinity Hall is not only entirely distinct from Trinity College; it is also much older. It was founded in 1350 by William Bateman, bishop of Norwich and church diplomatist, who intended his new institution to provide men learned in canon law for the service of the church. For over 600 years the college has maintained a tradition of legal study and produced an impressive number of judges and other eminent lawyers.

The visitor enters the college from Trinity Lane through the arch in a building erected in 1852 to replace one lost in a fire. The main court is 14th-century but, like many others in Cambridge, was given its present well-proportioned classical appearance by refacing in the 18th century. Some idea of how the medieval buildings looked can be obtained by going through the passage beside B staircase; the wall immediately behind retains its medieval masonry and some early windows. The hall was given its present regular appearance in the 18th century, as was the chapel, which is the earliest chapel especially projected for college use, and the smallest college chapel in Cambridge. Beyond the screens on the right is the library, a very pretty piece of Elizabethan brickwork.

The upper floor is preserved in its original state with chained books attached to Jacobean bookcases. The small door high up in the wall was originally at the end of a walk on top of a wall that led from the Master's Lodge opposite. The old lodge no longer exists and the wall has disappeared. The herbaceous border beside the library is especially magnificent in late summer. The gardens lead down to a terrace beside the river. Beyond the Master's Lodge is the Fellows' Garden, which is not usually open to the public, but can be easily seen through the wrought iron gate. It contains a number of ancient chestnut trees and another splendid herbaceous border. In 1905 the novelist Henry James wrote, 'If I were called upon… to mention the prettiest corner of the world I should draw out a thoughtful sigh and point the way to the garden of Trinity Hall.'

Not all the eminent men who have studied at the college are part of its legal tradition. Robert Herrick, the 17th-century author of the well-known lyric 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may', studied here. In the 18th century Trinity Hall undergraduates included Viscount Fitzwilliam, founder of the Fitzwilliam Museum, and Lord Chesterfield, author of a famous series of letters to his son about how to do well in society which Dr Johnson condemned as teaching 'the morals of a whore and the manners of a dancing master'. More recent names include the Victorian man of letters Sir Leslie Stephen and the novelists Bulwer-Lytton, Ronald Firbank and J. B. Priestley.