Cambridge and Its CollegesThompson, A. Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton)
History
Cambridge and Its Colleges
Thompson, A. Hamilton (Alexander Hamilton)
University of Cambridge
The arrangement of buildings at Caius is rather curious, and no Cambridge
college has been so transformed since its foundation. The chapel is
between the two lesser courts; the hall is at the back of everything,
and its position is far from obvious. Caius may be said to consist of
two halves: the first half, to the east, borders Trinity Street, and
is the New Court; the second and westerly half is an oblong bounded on
three sides by narrow lanes and on the other by the rest of the college.
This second half is again split into two halves, the northern of which,
nearest Trinity Lane, is Gonville Court, and represents the ancient
college removed here in 1353 from the other end of King’s Parade. Beneath
its somewhat modern front an immense quantity of the original work still
exists, and fourteenth-century windows have been discovered. The old
hall and chapel have disappeared, although part of the present chapel
may belong to the original buildings. Caius, however, in refounding the
college, altered everything. He built an additional court, south of the
ancient college. This, too, has been refaced, and is, for the most part,
a comfortable quadrangle of Queen Anne date. But the gates which Caius,
giving play to a strange fancy, built for his college, are still entire.
His Gate of Humility, a mere postern in the outer buildings, exists no
longer; but Mr Waterhouse preserved the idea in his new building, and
recently his gate has, in accordance with the founder’s design, been made
once again the principal entrance. The Gate of Virtue, leading from the
new court into Caius Court, is a tall Italian building, in which Gothic
and Renaissance forms are most curiously blended. The Italian appearance
of the design is due, no doubt, to the corner turret, which introduces a
very picturesque element into a simple plan.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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