Cambridge

Colleges

PETERHOUSE

Peterhouse, the oldest college in Cambridge, was founded in 1284 in two houses bought by Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely, for a Master and fourteen 'worthy but impoverished Fellows' who were scholars or teachers and lived in the college but taught outside. It was not until the sixteenth century that paying students began to live in colleges. It was restored in the 1870s. But in 1628, under the master-ship of Mathew Wren, the original houses were demolished and the library and chapel were built. The west exterior of the chapel illustrates the transition from Gothic to Renaissance architecture that took place under the Stuarts.
At the turn of the twentieth century, Peterhouse was the first college to have electricity.
Henry Cavendish, at Peterhouse in the eighteenth century, measured the density of water and was the first person to weigh the earth at six thousand million million million tons. Other notable Peterhouse men include Charles Babbage, inventor of the first mechanical computer, Sir Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine, and Sir Christopher Cockerell.

KING'S COLLEGE

In 1440 Henry VI, a young man of eighteen, established Eton College, and the next year founded the College of St Nicholas in Cambridge for twelve students. He began building  and then decided on a much grander plan. Seventy scholars from Eton were to be able to complete their education here. Henry wanted a simple, enclosed court with the chapel as the north wall. He explained everything, even to the number and dimensions of the rooms, in his 'wille and entent' of 1448. The college was renamed the King's College of Our Lady and St Nicholas.
Henry's greatest achievement must be King's College Chapel, the finest Gothic building in Europe and one of the best-known buildings in the world.
The Adoration of the Magi, which was given to the college by A.E. Allnatt in 1961, was painted by Rubens in eight days in 1634 .
King's has a world-famous choir of sixteen choristers and fourteen undergraduates, which sings at college services during the term. Since 1928 the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols has been broadcast around the world from the chapel every Christmas Eve.
Famous undergraduates of King's College are Rupert Brooke, First World War poet, writer E.M. Forster and Maynard Keynes, the economist.

TRINITY HALL

In the late 1340s, England was devastated by the Black Death. William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich, lost almost 700 of his parish priests, which prompted him in 1350 to found 'The Hall of the Holy Trinity of Norwich' to educate students in the canon and civil law. Trinity Hall  retains its title, still known as the lawyers' college. In the nineteenth century other halls became colleges, but Trinity Hall was unable to do so because there already was a Trinity College.
The chapel, Cambridge's smallest, was licensed in 1352. The chapel and hall were modernised in the eighteenth century. The beautiful altarpiece is the Presentation in the Temple by Manzuoli.
The library was built in the late sixteenth century. Some books are still chained in the traditional manner to prevent their removal. One, written by Erasmus, was published in 1521 by the first Cambridge printer, John Siberch.
Тhe Fellow's Garden moved novelist Henry James to describe it as 'the prettiest corner of the world'.
Old 'Hall' men include Admiral Lord Howard of Effingham and authors Robert Herrick and J.B. Priestley.