Pembroke College (Cambridge)

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Pembroke College
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founding 1347 Hall of Marie Valence, 1856 Pembroke College
Sponsorship University of Cambridge
place Cambridge
master Sir Richard Dearlove
Students 420
postgraduates : 194
Website www.pem.cam.ac.uk

The Pembroke College is the third oldest existing College of the University of Cambridge ; it has more than 600 students and fellows .

history

The clock tower of Pembroke College

On Christmas Eve 1347, King Edward III. of England to Marie de Saint-Pol , widow of Aymer de Valence, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, the right to found a new educational institution at the young university in Cambridge . The Hall of Marie Valence , as the college was originally called, was intended to accommodate both students and teachers. The statutes remarkably state, on the one hand, that preference was given to students from France who had already studied at other schools in England, and on the other hand, that the students were asked to notify fellow students if they indulged in excessive drinking or visited houses with bad repute.

The college was later renamed Pembroke House and finally Pembroke College in 1856 .

building

The main gate of Pembroke College
chapel
organ

The first buildings stood around a simple courtyard, today's Old Court, and contained all the facilities the college needed: chapel, hall, kitchen and pantry, accommodation for teachers and students. The statutes also promised an administrator, a cook, a hairdresser and a laundress. Both the establishment of the college and the construction of the city's first college chapel (1355) required the approval of a papal bull .

The original courtyard was the university's smallest at 95 × 55 feet (29 × 6.5 meters) and was not expanded to its present size until the 19th century when the southern front was demolished.

The college gatehouse, on the other hand, is the original structure, making it the oldest in Cambridge. The hall was rebuilt in the 19th century by Alfred Waterhouse after declaring the existing one unsafe.

The old chapel now forms the Old Library. It has an eye-catching plaster ceiling from the 17th century depicting birds in flight , by Henry Doogood . During the English Civil War , one of the college fellows and chaplain of later King Charles I , Mathew Wren , was imprisoned by Oliver Cromwell . When released after 18 years, he kept a promise by commissioning his nephew Christopher Wren to build a large chapel in his former college. The structure was consecrated on St Mathew's Day 1665 and enlarged on its east side by George Gilbert Scott in the 1880s .

Pembroke College also has well-tended gardens with a large area reserved for carefully selected plants. Highlights are The Orchard , a partially natural piece in the middle of the college, an impressive avenue of plane trees and an immaculately kept bowling green , which is said to be the oldest continuously used in Europe. Since 1997 there is also a new building, Foundress Court , which mainly contains offices.

Well-known alumni of Pembroke College

Still image of Pitt at Pembroke College

Web links

Commons : Pembroke College  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 52 ° 12 ′ 6.1 ″  N , 0 ° 7 ′ 9.1 ″  E