Queens' College, Cambridge

Queens’ College is so named, with the apostrophe after the “s” rather than before it, because two queens were involved in its foundation. These were Margaret of Anjou, the wife of King Henry VI, and Elizabeth Woodville, who was married to King Edward IV. The two queens, being married to the main protagonists of the Wars of the Roses, played entirely separate roles in the College’s foundation (in 1448 and 1475 respectively) but both are commemorated in its name. The full name is The Queens’ College of St Margaret and St Bernard.

Most of the oldest colleges in Cambridge form a row in a north-south line along the River Cam, the northernmost being Magdalene with Queens’ being at the southern end, alongside St Catherine’s. Queens’ is one of two colleges (the other being St John’s) that has buildings on both sides of the river.

  

Visitors are welcome throughout the year, apart from during a four-week period in May and June that coincides with University exams and a few other dates. 

Visitors to colleges at Oxford and Cambridge need to be aware that these places are working institutions, even outside term time, so what you can see and do is limited. Most of the buildings at Queens’ can be admired only from the outside. The Fellows’ Garden is also off-limits. At Queens’ the buildings you can enter are the Old Hall and the Chapel.

The Old Hall dates from 1449, being part of the original buildings on the quadrangle that is now known as Old Court. Various changes have been made down the centuries, but work done in recent years has mostly been aimed at preserving the Hall as it would have appeared originally, apart from the decorations added in the 19^th century by William Morris. These make the interior extremely colourful and intricate, including gilded angels and wall tiles designed by artists including Edward Burne-Jones and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. There are portraits, donated in 1766, of Erasmus (a former student), Elizabeth Woodville and Sir Thomas Smith (a 16^th century scholar and diplomat who was educated at the College).

Also in Old Court is a large and complex sundial, dating from 1642, that is designed to give the date as well as the time. However, reading the sundial is not easy, partly because it predates the move to the Gregorian calendar in 1752.

The Chapel is in Walnut Tree Court, which dates from 1616-18 but was largely rebuilt in 1778-82. The Chapel itself was built in late Victorian times, being dedicated in 1891. It is notable for its stained glass windows and statues of St Margaret of Antioch and St Bernard of Clairvaux, the patron saints of Queens’ College.

The President’s Lodge, on Cloister Court, was built in 1460 and is the oldest surviving building anywhere in Cambridge University. It is a Tudor half-timbered house that fronts the river on one side. As it is the private residence of the College’s President, it is not open to the public.

To the left of the President’s Lodge is an archway through to what is probably Queens’ College’s best known feature, namely the “Mathematical Bridge”. This is a wooden footbridge that leads to the parts of the College (mostly student residences) on the other side of the narrow River Cam. The students refer to the two halves as the “dark side” and the “light side”!

All sort of stories have arisen about the origins and properties of the bridge. One myth is that it was built by Sir Isaac Newton, but as it was first built in 1749 and Newton had died in 1727 that seems highly unlikely! Another story is that it was designed to stay in place without the use of any nails, screws or bolts, the laws of mathematics being all that was necessary to prevent its collapse. This myth was compounded by the story that it was dismantled at one time by a group of students who were then unable to put it back together without using metal fixings. However, this is also complete nonsense.

The structure of the bridge is best appreciated from the nearby Silver Street road bridge, from where it can be seen that the curve of its underside is created entirely from straight timbers that form parts of a tangent to an imagined curve. These have then been held in place by being fixed to short cross-members. The bridge, being wooden, has twice needed to be completely rebuilt, most recently in 1905. The original metal fixings were hidden from view although that is not so with the current construction, and this was no doubt what gave rise to the myths referred to above.

Visitors to Queens’ College usually use the Visitors’ Gate on Queens’ Lane, but during the winter they must enter via the Porter’s Lodge on Silver Street.

© John Welford