The Cambridge Colleges - Part Two

Magdalene College

Like many other colleges dating from the second major series of foundations, Magdalene (pronounced 'maudlin') incorporates the buildings of an earlier, religious establishment — in this case Monks' Hostel, a Benedictine educational institution. It was also known as Buckingham College because of the large benefactions it received from late-15th-century Dukes of Buckingham, who built the chapel and hall. At the dissolution of the monasteries the hostel passed to Thomas, Lord Audley, the Lord Chancellor of England, who in 1542 founded the present college.

Magdalene is unusual in that its master is not elected by the fellows but chosen by the heirs of Lord Audley of Audley End, the great Jacobean mansion near Saffron Walden; it is also the only ancient college situated on the west bank of the Cam.

The First Court, of beautiful red brick, was erected piecemeal in the 15th and 16th centuries. The elaborate gallery and double staircase were inserted in the hall in 1714. The splendid silver candle holders here are not merely decorative, for the hall is still lit only by candles. Attempts to raise money for a new building in the 1640s bore fruit soon after 1660 in the Pepys Building, which has a pretty semi-classical facade but from the Fellows' Garden behind looks more like a country gentleman's house. Its name and the date (1724) over the central arch of its arcade refer to the installation of the celebrated library which Samuel Pepys left to his old college. This can still be seen in its 12 original bookcases of red oak made for Pepys in 1666. The collection contains many valuable manuscripts and books, but its chief treasure is the manuscript of Pepys' famous shorthand diary (first published 1825). Through-out his career as MP, secretary to the Admiralty and president of the Royal Society Pepys remembered his happy undergraduate days at Magdalene. His diary for 25 May 1668 records a visit to his old college: 'I took my boy. . . and walked to Magdalene College; and there into the buttery as a stranger, and there drank my belly full of their beer, which pleased me, as the best I ever drank: and hear by the butler's man, who was son to Goody Mulliner over-against the college that we used to buy stewed prunes of concerning the college and persons in it; and find very few. . . that were of my time . .

Magdalene Street, which still has a provision shop much patronised by Magdalene undergraduates, is mostly owned by the college and contains Cambridge's best surviving examples of medieval domestic architecture. It s now a row of picturesque shops but was formerly a slum, notorious for its many brothels: in his Tour through . . . Great Britain Defoe was shocked that a college should be surrounded by such squalid dwellings. The redevelopment and building of student accommodation between Magdalene Street and St John's has remained small-scale and in keeping with the beautiful surroundings.

Pembroke College

In the mid 14th century the University gave Mary de St Pol, Countess of Pembroke, a small piece of land to establish a new college. The rest of Pembroke's site was acquired piecemeal and did not reach its present extent until the 16th century.

The most notable survival of the foundress's original court, now called Old Court, is the considerably restored 14th-century gateway. It is surmounted by a pair of pretty 17th-century oriel windows flanking the college coat of arms, carved in stone. The court was much enlarged in the 19th century by the removal of the south range, so that it now includes the new chapel and the attractive arcade known as Hitcham's Cloister, named after a 17th-century benefactor. The original chapel, on the north side of the court, was completely remodelled after the building of the new chapel (1690) and until the 19th century was used as a library; it has a superb plasterwork ceiling.

The present chapel is of great interest as the first completed work by Sir Christopher Wren. In 1659 his uncle Matthew Wren, bishop of Ely and fellow of Pembroke, was released from the Tower of London after 17 years' imprison-ment, and determined to provide his college with a new chapel as a thanks-giving. He asked his nephew, then a professor at Oxford, to design it. The new chapel (consecrated 1665) was the most purely classical building that Cam-bridge had yet seen. For the first time an architect showed sensitivity in designing the street front of a college building: the west end of the chapel, on Trumpington Street, is most harmonious. The interior has a very ornate plaster ceiling.

A new court was built beyond the hall in the 17th century. The north range was constructed between 1614 and 1616 and Hitcham's Building opposite was begun in 1655. The gate in the wall beyond, which forms the entrance to the extensive and beautiful garden, is the stone door-case (1634) removed from the entrance to the old hall in 1878. The old hall was demolished in the 19th century on the advice of the architect Waterhouse, who thought it likely to collapse at any moment; in fact it took several charges of dynamite to bring it down. Waterhouse then rebuilt the hall and added buildings beyond the chapel in the style of a Loire château. Pembroke is more fortunate than either Gonville and Caius, or Balliol College, Oxford, where Waterhouse also built, in that its grounds are sufficiently extensive to absorb the architect's new buildings and prevent them from overshadowing the older parts of the college. None the less, it is difficult to like an architect who wished to add a huge campanile to Wren's chapel 'high enough to be the most conspicuous tower in Cambridge'.

The list of famous men who studied at Pembroke is longer than that of many larger colleges. Nicholas Ridley, the great church reformer who is thought to have helped Cranmer with the new Protestant prayer book, was made a fellow in c. 1524. In prison shortly before his martyrdom in 1555 he wrote a moving letter of farewell in which he remembers his time at Pembroke: 'Farewell therefore Cambridge, my loving mother and tender nurse. . . Farewell Pembroke Hall, of late mine own college, my care and my charge. . . in thy orchard (the walls. . . and trees, if they could speak, would bear m' e witness) I learned without book almost all Paul's Epistles . . . the sweet smell thereof I trust I shall carry with me into heaven. . .' Pembroke also fostered the studies of several famous poets: Edmund Spenser, author of The Faerie Queene and a favourite of Elizabeth I; Thomas Gray (author of the 'Elegy in a Country Churchyard') who found tranquillity here after his torment at Peterhouse; and the brilliant but unstable Christopher Smart. In 1773 William Pitt entered the college, aged 15; he left in 1780 and within three years he was Prime Minister.

Peterhouse

The oldest college in Cambridge is properly 'St Peter's', but for centuries it has been known as Peterhouse. In 1280 Hugh of Balsham established a community of scholars at St John's Hospital, following the example set by II Merton at the new Merton College, Oxford. In 1284 the scholars moved to the present site, some hostels then outside the Trumpington Gate. Money bequeathed by Hugh of Balsham was used to build the hall, the oldest surviving college building in Cambridge. It has been considerably altered, and in he 19th century was decorated by the firm of William Morris. There was no need to build a chapel straight away, for the scholars could use the Church of St Peter's-without-Trumpington-Gate, which since its rebuilding (1340-52) has been known as Little St Mary's. It is still connected by a gallery to Peterhouse.

American visitors may be particularly interested in its memorial (on the north wall) to the Rev. Godfrey Washington, a fellow of Peterhouse (died 1729), bearing the Washington coat of arms — traditionally the origin of the stars and stripes of the American flag. The graveyard, a romantic tangle of graves and trees and flowers, and the picturesque cottages of Little St Mary's Lane, together make one of the loveliest corners of Cambridge. The rest of the main court was erected in the 15th century, and like many other college courts was given a classical facade in the 18th century. Its dullness is relieved in summer by boxes of bright red geraniums on the window sills. The chapel (1628-32) is unusually positioned in 'the middle of the open side of the court, and is a delightful example of the English Baroque style, largely inspired by the high-church revival under Charles I. It suffered badly at the hands of the Puritans, but fortunately the great east window, erected in 1630 and made to a design of Rubens, was removed in time and hidden until the restoration of Charles II. The rest of the glass was installed in the 19th century.

In 1738 the new building designed by Burrough was erected parallel to the chapel. It completes the varied and very attractive frontage of Peterhouse onto Trumpington Street. Opposite is a fine 18th-leaving town house built (1702) by Dr Charles Beaumont, who died in 1726, leaving his house to the college tube used as the Master's Lodge. The poet Thomas Gray was at Peterhouse from 1734 to 1738; he returned in 1743 but left for good in 1756 in 'unfortunate circumstances. Being terrified of fire, he kept a rope in his room as a means of escape. This much amused a group of undergraduates who spent more time hunting than studying, and they decided to hunt Gray by shouting 'firer under his window. Gray did not jump out, but he was so upset that he changed his college for Pembroke, across the road. The iron bars he placed across the window, to which he could attach his rope, still exist in his rooms in the Fellows' Building.

Queens' College

 The early history of Queens' resembles that of Christ's, in that a small and poor foundation was taken over and refurbished by an aristocratic lady with a zeal for education. St Bernard's College was founded in 1446 by Andrew Dockctt, rector of St Botolph's, on the site of an old priory. Within a year Queen Margaret of Anjou, wife to Henry VI (the founder of King's College), gained her husband's consent to refound and rename St Bernard's. She thought that this would lead to 'laud and honneure of sexe femnine' and that the absence of a Cambridge college founded by a queen of England was a grievous omission. The foundation stone of Queen Margaret's College was laid in 1448. Fortunately after Henry's deposition Queen Elizabeth, wife of his enemy Edward IV, decided to continue her predecessor's work. She granted the college its statutes and finished its buildings. Queens' College regards itself as having been founded by both queens; hence the apostrophe after the s in the college's name.

The First Court of Queens' can well claim to be the prettiest of Cambridge's smaller courts; it certainly gives the best impression of what a late medieval college looked like. Its mellow red brick has survived so well that the court has remained virtually unrenovated. The architect (probably Reginald of Ely) included in the east side a splendid gate tower, one of the many in Cambridge designed to protect the colleges' treasuries. The mid-17th-century sundial on the north wall was renewed in 1733. The buildings by the river were begun soon after the completion of the First Court, to which they are linked by the highly picturesque timber and plaster gallery of the President's Lodge (Queens' has a president rather than a master).

The quaint cloister below — Cambridge's only medieval cloister — was continued around three sides of this utterly delightful court, which forms an ideal setting for Queens' Drama Society's performances of Shakespeare every May Week. The lavishly painted hall, a basically 16th-century structure, was (like most college halls) altered in the 18th century when classical architecture was fashionable and Gothic despised, and promptly altered again in the 19th century when the reverse obtained. Many of the Victorian alterations and decorations were, like those at Peterhouse, made by the firm of William Morris.

The tower in the south-west corner of Old Court is traditionally known as Erasmus' Tower; the great humanist scholar lived in Queens' (1511-14) whilst teaching as Lady Margaret Reader in Greek and Professor of Divinity in the University. Though he complained about the cold damp Cambridge weather and the 'raw, small and windy' college ale, he later looked back on the University's hospitality with some affection. James Essex designed all that was built (1756-60) of a larger scheme for rebuilding the whole river front, never carried out. The medieval buildings are enhanced by the famous timber Mathematical Bridge. The present structure (1902) is a copy of the original constructed in 1749-50.

Further building took place in the 19th and 20th centuries. Sir Basil Spence's new building (1959) caused a sensation, so shocked was Cambridge at the idea of a modern building on the Backs. It now looks tame and fiddly; Powell and Moya's Cripps Building is bolder and better.

St Catharine's College

The college takes its name and crest (a wheel) from the mythical St Catharine of Alexandria, a patroness of learning, whose sanctity was such that it caused the wheel on which she was about to be martyred to break into pieces. I Robert Woodlark, third provost of King's, founded St Catharine's in 1473 as a small society of priests who would spend their time praying for their founder's soul and studying theology and philosophy. The study of non-religious subjects — medicine and law — was expressly forbidden.

At first there were no under-graduate members, although by this time the concept of a college as a teaching institution as well as a home for scholars was widely accepted. However, by the 16th century the college was obliged — probably to increase its income — to become a teaching body. Initially the main entrance was on Queens' Lane; the rest of the college was separated from Trumpington Street by a row of houses. Its buildings, never very splendid, were so dilapidated by the 17th century that it was decided, as at Clare, to rebuild completely. The main court was begun in 1673. The chapel was finished in 1704; it contains extremely fine contemporary wood-work. James Essex designed a new building for the south-east side of the court (1757-72); the north side was `Gothicised' in the 19th century to harmonise with the oriel window added to the old hall.

By now the college had acquired the land alongside Trumpington Street and demolished the houses there. It was origin-ally intended that a fourth, eastern side should be added to the court, but this was never constructed and the court remains three-sided, in the Cambridge tradition begun by John Caius in the 16th century. The buildings of St Catharine's, much admired by John Ruskin, are in a dark-coloured brick that makes them look rather gaunt except in bright sunshine; a fourth side would have plunged the whole court into permanent gloom. John Addenbrooke, founder of Addenbrooke's Hospital, entered St Catharine's in 1697. By then the founder's restrictions on subjects of study had been forgotten, and Addenbrooke graduated MD in 1711. In his will he 14t his medicine chest to his old college, which still owns it. Other well-known students at St Catharine's have included the dramatist James Shirley (1596-1666) and the novelist Malcolm Lowry 1 L (1 o 909-57).

One of the youngest Cambridge under-graduates ever admitted was William Wotton (born 1666) who knew Hebrew Greek and Latin by the time he was six and entered St Catharine's at the age of nine. At 21 he became a fellow of the Royal Society, but his later career was undistinguished.

In 1880, when the fortunes of St Catharine's were at a low ebb, it was suggested that the college be merged with King's. The idea did not receive enough support to be carried out, but memories of it were revived between 1965 and 1968 when St Catharine's and King's co-operated in the rebuilding of King's Lane, which runs between the two colleges. The development includes a new hall for St Catharine's; the old hall became the Senior Combination (Common) Room.

St John's College

Like Christ's College, St John's is the creation of Lady Margaret Beaufort, Henry VIPs mother. She never saw her new college, for she died before its foundation in 1511; it was brought into being by her friend John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, who chose for it the site of the 13th-century Hospital of St John. The First Court incorporated the old chapel of the hospital. The gatehouse, with Lady Margaret's coat of arms over the entrance, survives in its original state. Its elegant proportions contrast well with Trinity's massive Great Gate, and it is often reckoned to be the most beautiful of Cambridge's gatehouses.

St John's early years coincided with Erasmus' introduction of humanist scholarship to Cambridge, and the college soon established itself as an import-ant centre of learning. Its teachers included Roger Ascham, who assisted in the spread of the new European ideas and later became Queen Elizabeth's tutor, and among his students was Thomas Wyatt, the first poet to introduce Italian form, into English literature. The college also expanded rapidly, and for long t he largest in the University. The Second Court (1602) was mainly financed by Mary, Countess of Shrewsbury, whose statue stands above the gateway in the tower at the west end of the court.

This plain but impressive example of late Elizabethan brickwork contains one of the most spectacular interiors in Cambridge, the panelled long gallery which is now the Senior Combination Room. The plaster ceiling, 28 m long, dates from 1600.

Work on the Third Court followed almost immediately as a result of a large donation by John Williams, bishop of Lincoln and Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal. His full title explains the large initials on the river front of the library which mystify many passers-by: ILCS, i.e. Johannes Lincolniensis Custos Sigilli. With its great bay window the library looks very beautiful from the river, and is interesting as one of the earliest English examples of deliberately 'Gothic' architecture — in a sense the first Gothic 'revival — specified by Williams because he thought it appropriate to a library building.

The rest of the small but very pretty Third Court was finished later in the 17th century. In 1698 the college consulted Sir Christopher Wren about constructing a new bridge. This was eventually built (1708-12) by Robert Grumbold, making some use of Wren's designs; it leads to St John's spacious grounds on the far side of the river. It was here that Wordsworth liked to wander to escape from the bustle of University life. Wordsworth was at St John's from 1787 to 1790.

In 1831 St John's erected the huge New Building on the far side of the river, at the time the largest single building of any college. It is a 19th-century dream of the middle ages, complete with pinnacles and cloisters in the spirit of Sir Walter Scott and Victorian Romantic operas. The whole is crowned with what can only be described as a Gothic cupola, traditionally known as the Wedding Cake. The building is linked to the Third Court by the famous Bridge of Sighs' which resembles the bridge in Venice. In contrast to the New Building the Victorian Chapel is academically correct and respectably dull. It does not harmonise with the rest of First Court, but it is happily positioned (by chance rather than design) to create some attractive views, especially from the river. The college's 1930s buildings are best unmentioned. However, its Cripps Building, designed by Powell and Moya (completed 1967) and tucked away behind the New Building, is often thought to be the finest 20th-century college building in Cambridge.