1 Willis and Clark (see note 2) were, however, at pains to stress the secular origin of collegiate architecture. David Watkin points out that this was a part of Willis’s intention to counter ‘the popular nineteenth-century view that educational building ought to be religious, i.e. Gothic, in flavour’ (Willis and Clark, 1: xvi).

2 Willis, R. and Clark, J. W., The Architectural History of the University of Cambridge, 4 vols (Cambridge, 1886; reprinted in 3 vols with an Introduction by David Watkin, 1988).Google Scholar

3 See Cunningham, C. J. K. and Waterhouse, P., Alfred Waterhouse 1830-1905: Biography of a Practice (Oxford, 1992).Google Scholar

4 Doig, Alan, The Architectural Drawings Collection of King’s College, Cambridge (Amersham, 1979).Google Scholar

5 Cunningham and Waterhouse, Alfred Waterhouse, p. 67.

6 Willis’s description of these two buildings, erected in 1617 and 1619 respectively, reveals something of his scholarly approach: ‘These two contracts [for the two buildings], which I have fully analysed in the chapter on College Studies, give most valuable information concerning the arrangements of the chambers, and many curious technical words; and for interpreting them there is this great and uncommon advantage, that the buildings to which they refer are still in existence’ (Willis and Clark, 1:186-87).

7 Note byj. Lamb, Fellow of Gonville and Caius College, in Willis and Clark, 1: 190.

8 Ibid., p. 189.

9 Robert Willis (1800-75) served as Jacksonian Professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy in the University of Cambridge from 1837 until his death. He was also a lecturer at the Government School of Mines in London from its foundation, in 1853, until 1868. The Architectural History was completed and prepared for publication by his nephew, John Willis Clark (1833-1910).

10 Willis and Clark, 1: 189-90. Willis later noted that the old hall was ‘divided by floors and fitted up so as to contain as many sets of chambers as could conveniently be constructed within it’. Presumably this work involved the destruction of the segmental plaster vault and other ‘modernisation’ designed by Soane in 1792.

11 It is significant that when, in 1883, Waterhouse was called back to Caius to provide a new lecture theatre on the same side of the College as Salvin’s hall, he abandoned his earlier design recipe in favour of red brick and stone in keeping with Salvin’s Tudor work.

12 Allibone, Jill, Anthony Salvin: Pioneer of Gothic Revival Architecture (Lutterworth, 1988), p. 136.Google Scholar

13 1868-70, Jesus College, new undergraduate rooms (cat. 290); 1870-73, Pembroke College, new Master’s Lodge and new undergraduate rooms (cat. 333); 1871–77, Jesus College, restoration of hall and service rooms (cat. 347); 1875-79, Pembroke College, new hall and library (cat. 415): catalogue numbers are from Cunningham and Waterhouse, Alfred Waterhouse; the dates are those recorded in the office archive.

14 Cambridge has no other ancient first-floor halls, though the great hall at Christ Church, Oxford, is at first-floor level. Most of the first-floor halls at Oxford and Cambridge are nineteenth-century (Gonville and Caius, Cambridge, Salvin, 1852-53; Keble, Oxford, Butterfield, 1868-72; and Balliol, Oxford, Waterhouse, 1873-78).

15 Gray, A. and Brittain, F., A History of Jesus College Cambridge (London, 1960), p. 157.Google Scholar

16 According to Gray and Brittain, ‘no architect was involved, but the builder was instructed to copy the pattern of the adjoining building next the hall.’ (Ibid., p. 152).

17 RIBA Drawings Collection Wat A [11] A 1.

18 RIBA Drawings Collection Wat A [11] A 2.

19 RIBA Drawings Collection Wat A [11] A 1.

20 E. H. Morgan, MS Notes respecting the erection of the New Buildings & other works during the years 1869–71 (Jesus College Archives). The notes go well beyond 1871, and refer to work as late as 1875.

21 Cambridge Chronicle, quoted in Gray and Brittain, Jesus College, p. 167.

22 Willis and Clark, 11: 178. As the same words form the first entry in Morgan’s Notes (see note 20), he evidently supplied that comment.

23 MS letter Waterhouse to E. H. Morgan (Dean), 8 April 1870, with schedule attached (Jesus College Archives).

24 Ibid. Waterhouse recommended repointing parts of the kitchen, and repairing its stonework, roof, and coping. He urged repointing the north and south sides of the hall and its roofs, setting and pointing the copings, repairing stonework, and painting as well as rebuilding four chimney shafts on the north side of the hall.

25 Morgan, Notes (see note 20), p. 16. By 1875-81 Jesus College was the third largest in the University.

26 The new range cost £8,430, the ‘Hall &c’ £6,190. The figures are from the architect’s certificates. Willis and Clark give a total of £9,87435. id. for the new range.

27 Morgan, Notes (see note 20).

28 Forty-four letters and memoranda survive between the Dean (E. H. Morgan), Dr Corrie, Waterhouse, and various contractors; there are also bound memorandum and account books, and a few drawings in the Jesus College Archives.

29 RIBA Drawings Collection Wat A [11] B 1. The handwriting of the notes appears to be Morgan’s. Several further drawings for alterations to the hall and other works survive in the RIBA Drawings Collection (Wat A [11] B-C).

30 MS draft of a letter from Morgan to Waterhouse, 22january 1877, detailing the piecemeal nature of the work, and complaining of overcharging (Jesus College Archives).

31 Morgan, Notes, p. 9.

32 Ibid. The bell was eventually rehung in the replacement cupola.

33 This roof, dating from about 1500, was built as part of Bishop Alcock’s adaptation of the nuns’ refectory, when he also refaced the walls in brick and, apparently, constructed an internal dividing wall that cut off the western bay (see note 44).

34 Willis and Clark, 11:161.

35 They do, however, cite evidence that the hall had originally been hung with tapestries (ibid.).

36 A single leaf from a sketchbook in the Waterhouse office archive (RIBA Drawings Collection Wat A [11] B 20) has a design for medievalizing stencil work to the window reveals; it also shows the elaborate gasoliers to Waterhouse’s design that were also abandoned.

37 The specification lists: ‘Erect temporary hoarding in Hall to enclose Arch and paper over same to stop draught and Dust during the progress of the works. Insert needles thro the wall over window head and properly shore same and groining. Cut out present cill to panelling of jambs soffit and prepare and fix new cill about 4ms high as required properly stopped and moulded to jambs and mullions. Prepare and fix a new projecting moulded cill complete to window. Carefully take down and refix the 2 angle mullions of Oriel, providing about 6ft run of new to same as required. All new Transome tracery outside and about 6ft run of new inside do. with carved cresting. Form brick slopes with kneestones to base outside as per design. Cut out old and prepare and fix part new outside jambs. Cut out old and insert new quoins to angle of oriel above window head. Insert one new carved label stop. Carefully clean down the remaining old stonework outside. And clean down and restore inside of groiningjambs and soffit of arch, mullions and Tracery, carved cusps, cresting &c complete. Provide and fix 2 copper ties in height of Oriel of bar copper 1 1/4 X 3/8ths made to shape. Provide all necessary copper cramps required and leave all complete. The outside new stonework to be of Clipsham stone and the inside of Clunch’. MS letter Rattee & Kett to Waterhouse, 29 June 1871 (Jesus College Archives).

38 RCHM, An Inventory of the Historical Monuments of the City of Cambridge, vol. 2 (London 1959), 93.Google Scholar

39 The close interest taken by the Dean in the work generally is evidenced by surviving correspondence with Waterhouse in which the colour of the background glass is complained of (MS letters Waterhouse to Morgan 1871-72, especially 22 August 1872: Jesus College Archives, Cambridge). It would appear that it was replaced by Waterhouse, though no record of that work has been found.

40 He did, however, reuse the woodwork of the old screen, merely turning it so that the best face was outwards, and setting it against the gable wall.

41 Unusually, at Jesus the buttery and kitchen, usually reached from the screens passage, were on the ground floor, below the hall, and remained there in Waterhouse’s campaign of reconstruction.

42 See RCHM, Cambridge, 11:93–94 and pl. 144.Google Scholar The window appears to have been reset a bay further west by David Roberts, when he opened up a further bay of the roof and reinstated the west gallery in 1962-64.

43 Originally reached from the former screens passage or landing (see Fig. 5). Behind this, where one would normally expect buttery and kitchen, was a bedroom and lecture room, which now form part of the modern kitchen.

44 It is important to realize in this context that as a part of Bishop Alcock’s alterations, the western bay of the thirteenth-century refectory was separated by the insertion of a masonry wall rising the full height to the gable, but beneath the same roof. This inner wall formed the western end of the hall until its upper section was removed by David Roberts in the 1960s to recreate a traditional gallery over Waterhouse’s screens passage. Alcock never intended this bay, whose roof timbers are markedly more simply treated, to form part of his hall.

45 Willis and Clark, 11: 162. The similarity of the wording to that found in a note by Morgan in thejesus College Archives suggests that he supplied this part of the text.

46 Waterhouse used the resulting space under the old landing to extend the buttery as required, and then created a new passage beneath the ante hall, that continued the west walk of the cloister. The two stone archways that formed the lower entrances to the old stairs were bodily removed and reset by Waterhouse to provide a new entry to the kitchen and access to the larder direct from the cloister. (Morgan, Notes, p. 17.)

47 Ibid., p. 9. Morgan added that ‘the long table was cut in two — all the tables in the Hall were planed and made good’, which suggests a fairly cavalier attitude to antiques.

48 Cunningham and Waterhouse, Alfred Waterhouse, p. 174 and pl. 175.

49 RIBA Drawings Collection Wat A [11] B 21. Waterhouse produced three alternative designs incorporating Bishop Alcock’s rebus, the badge of the college.

50 The increase was required in order to get enough headroom in the passage beneath the ante hall for formal, rather than for servants’, use. This in turn meant that Waterhouse had to enlarge the medieval archway from the cloister, which he did by inserting new stones at the foot and reusing the old stones on top.

51 Morgan, Notes, p. 17.

52 RIBA Drawings Collection Wat A [11] B 9. The old archway is illustrated in Willis and Clark, 11: 16, fig. 4.

53 The original intention was for a modest block partly of one and partly of two stories containing stairs, servants’ hall, kitchen offices, and muniment room. The inclusion of a lecture room, later used as an overflow hall, substantially increased the bulk of this block. The RCHM description records that this obscured most of the west window of the hall, and surviving photographs show that it rose the full height of the hall to the parapet.

54 Morgan’s letter of 22 January 1877 (see note 30).

55 Full drawings for this do not survive, and all this part of the Waterhouse work was swept away unrecorded in 1962, when David Roberts reconstructed the kitchens and again rebuilt the access.

56 Letter from Waterhouse to the Master, 17 February 1879 (Pembroke College Archives).

57 MS report from Waterhouse, 14 April 1870 (Pembroke College Archives).

58 MS letter Gilbert Ainslie to R. Willis: Cambridge University Library Add. 5061, fol. 138, quoted in Peter Meadows, ‘The Last Years of the Old Hall’, Pembroke College Annual Gazette (1992).Google Scholar

59 This fund had actually been opened in 1776.

60 College Order, 18 November 1862, quoted in Willis and Clark, 1:150.

61 The Library was removed to the former Chapel in the late seventeenth century, when Wren’s new Chapel was built. The Library space was then converted into sets of rooms.

62 These works are analysed in detail by Meadows (‘Last Years of the Old Hall’), who argues that Cory (in contrast to Waterhouse) was making a genuine attempt to put back something approaching the old hall.

63 Willis and Clark, 1: 152. They quote Cory’s works as from his letter to The Times, 1 April 1875, when Cory became involved in the row over Waterhouse’s destruction of the old hall and with it Cory’s renovations.

64 Willis and Clark, 1: 151–52.

65 A plan of the layout for the entire new college, signed and dated 14 April 1870, survives in the RIBA Drawings Collection (Waterhouse Office No. 15084/1).

66 The Master’s Lodge and Red Buildings cost £25,000 (1872-73), the new Hall and Library £29,675 (1875-79).

67 Willis and Clark, 1: 152.

68 These were made by Henry Capel, like the hall chairs at Jesus, and have now found their way to the high table of the hall. I am grateful to Peter Meadows for bringing this item to my attention. He has discovered that a total of £485 10s. was charged to the Building Fund ‘it having been agreed at a College meeting, held Dec. 4, 1875, that the dining room of the new Lodge be furnished completely … and other reception rooms substantially’ (from a College Order of 4 December 1875). The order book lists twenty chairs, two armchairs, and an octagonal table. The Waterhouse office accounts record only a payment of £77 1 is. 2d. to Capel.

69 The Times, 29 March 1875.

70 Benjamin Jowett to Thomas Woolner 1866: Bodleian Library, Oxford.

71 The Times, 29 March 1875.

72 Report of 14 April 1870 (see note 57).

73 Waterhouse’s plan for the rebuilding of the College (RIBA Drawings Collection, Waterhouse Office No. 15084/1), of 14 April 1870, shows this extension in plan. No other drawings for this version survive. Cory’s hall is clearly shown as retained, but the buildings to the south of First Court are marked as demolished. The extended hall has a dais end with bay window of the same dimension as that eventually built. There is an additional fireplace on the west side with an attached stair turret outside giving access to the rooms over the hall. The basic elements of this part of Waterhouse’s new hall were therefore all established at this date, though the stair turret was later moved further south.

74 Report of 14 April 1870 (see note 57).

75 Willis and Clark, 1:153.

76 Letter (printed) from Waterhouse to the Master, 30 June 1874 (Pembroke College Archives).

77 Ibid.

78 Ibid.

79 Willis and Clark, 1:153.

80 Meadows (‘Last Years of the Old Hall’) points out that, though Waterhouse was invited to attend a College meeting on 31 December 1874, there is no record that such a meeting was held nor when the decision to demolish was taken.

81 The Times, 26 March 1875: memorial from the Rt Revd J. R. Woodford, Bishop of Ely; Sir Henry Maine, Corpus Professor of Jurisprudence in the University of Oxford; William Haig-Brown, Headmaster of Charter-house; and Canon Venables, Precentor of Lincoln Cathedral.

82 The Times, 26 March 1875. He repeated Waterhouse’s argument that the walls were without proper foundations, were considerably out of the vertical and in some places actually dangerous.

83 MS letter Waterhouse to the Master, 16 March 1875 (Pembroke College Archives).

84 MS letter Waterhouse to the Master, 8 May 1875 (Pembroke College Archives).

85 There is the hint of a justification for this in Willis and Clark’s record (1: 131-32) that a similar window that had opened into the hall was discovered in the turret stair beside the old hall during demolition.

86 MS Report Waterhouse to the Master, 14 April 1870 (Pembroke College Archives).

87 An undated general plan of the college buildings (RIBA Drawings Collection, Waterhouse Office No. 19939/ 95) shows a simple apse.

88 Letter of 30 June 1874 (see note 76). Waterhouse also recommended a number of fairly conservative repairs to roof, walls, and cornice.

89 Waterhouse was surely thinking of the Morris, Brown and Burne Jones work in the Gothic chapel at Jesus.

90 Letter of 30 June 1874.

91 The office accounts show charges for a total of 830 days of designing time for all the building at Pembroke, compared with 190 for all that was done at Jesus.