Downing College, Cambridge

Downing College UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Quaerere Verum
Cambridge, Cambridgeshire
Downing College Chapel
Master:	Graham Virgo
Website:	dow.cam.ac.uk
Location
Grid reference:	TL45315797
Location:	52°12’3"N, 0°7’29"E

Downing College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge and currently has around 950 students. Founded in 1800, it was the only college to be added to Cambridge University between 1596 and 1869, and is often described as the oldest of the new colleges and the newest of the old. Downing College was formed "for the encouragement of the study of Law and Medicine and of the cognate subjects of Moral and Natural Science", and has developed a reputation amongst Cambridge colleges for Law and Medicine.

History

Upon the death of Sir George Downing, 3rd Baronet in 1749, the wealth left by his grandfather, Sir George Downing, 1st Baronet, who served both Cromwell and Charles II and built 10 Downing Street (a door formerly from Number 10 is in use in the college), was applied by his will. Under this will, as he had no direct issue (he was legally separated from his wife), the family fortune was left to his cousin, Sir Jacob Downing, 4th Baronet, and if he died without heir, to three cousins in succession. If they all died without issue, the estates were to be used to found a college at Cambridge called Downing.

Sir Jacob died in 1764, and as the other named heirs had also died, the college should have come into existence then, but Sir Jacob's widow, Margaret, refused to give up the estates and the various relatives who were Sir George's legal heirs had to take costly and prolonged action in the Court of Chancery to compel her to do so. She died in 1778 but her second husband and the son of her sister continued to resist the heirs-at-law's action until 1800 when the court decided in favour of Sir George's will and George III granted Downing a royal charter, marking the official foundation of the college.

Buildings

The Maitland Robinson Library

The architect William Wilkins was commissioned by the trustees of the Downing estate, who included the Master of Clare College and St John's College and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, to design the plan for the college. Wilkins, a disciple of the neo-classical architectural style, designed the first wholly campus-based college plan in the world based on a magnificent entrance on Downing Street reaching back to form the largest court in Cambridge, extending to Lensfield Road. But this was not to be.

The estate was much reduced by the suit in Chancery, and the grand plans failed. Much of the north side of what was then the Pembroke Leys was sold to the university and is now home to scientific buildings ("The Downing Site"). In fact, only limited East and West ranges were initially built, with the plans for a library and chapel on the south face of the college shelved.

Downing College Chapel (behind the portico), built in 1951

The third side of the square was only completed in 1951 with the building of the college chapel. Where the fourth side would have been is now a large paddock (known simply as "The Paddock"), with many trees. Though not fully enclosed, the court formed before the Downing College is perhaps largest in Cambridge or Oxford (a title contested with Trinity College's Great Court). An urban legend amongst Cambridge students claims that Trinity pays an undisclosed sum to the college annually with the condition that it will never build the fourth side of the square, so that Trinity may maintain the distinction of having the largest enclosed court of all colleges of Cambridge.^{[citation needed]}

The most recent building additions are the Howard Lodge accommodation, the Howard Building, and most recent of all the Howard Theatre which opened in 2010. These were sponsored by the Howard Foundation, and are located behind the main court around their own small garden. These facilities are used for conference and businesses gatherings outside the student term.

Pictures

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Downing College, Cambridge)

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  East Range, Downing College, November 2006

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  The Paddock, the green space between the trees. The church on the skyline is on Lensfield Road.

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  North east view of the lawns outside the chapel.

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  The Howard Building

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  J Staircase accommodation

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  The Kenny Building

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  A sundial commemorating the bicentenary of the college

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  Ai Weiwei Trees, part of a 2016 exhibition at the Heong Gallery

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  The college sports ground in the snow

Outside links

• Downing College
• Downing JCR
• Downing MCR

References

• Nikolaus Pevsner: The Buildings of England: Cambridgeshire, 1954 Penguin Books ISBN 978-0-300-09586-9
• French, Stanley, ed (1982). Aspects of Downing History. Cambridge: Downing College Association. OCLC 13078974. 
• Hope, Thomas (1804). Observations on the Plans and Elevations Designed by James Wyatt, Architect, for Downing College, Cambridge: In a Letter to Francis Annesley, Esq. M. P. London: D.N. Shury. OCLC 61617898. https://books.google.com/books?id=QBBFAAAAYAAJ. 
• Liscombe, Rhodri Windsor (1980). William Wilkins, 1778–1839. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-22528-1. 
• Stevens, Horace William Pettit (1889). Downing College. London: F.E. Robinson. OCLC 18275839. 
• Rawle, Tim (2015). Adamson, John. ed. A Classical Adventure: The Architectural History of Downing College, Cambridge. Photography by Tim Rawle and Louis Sinclair. Cambridge: The Oxbridge Portfolio. ISBN 978-0-9572867-4-0. 
• Smith, Otto Saumarez (2013). "A Strange Brutalist 'Primitive Hut': Howell, Killick, Partridge and Amis's Senior Combination Room at Downing College, Cambridge". Twentieth Century Architecture (The Twentieth Century Society) (Oxford and Cambridge: No. 11): 148–165. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24644446. 
• Sicca, Cinzia Maria (1987). Committed to Classicism: The Building of Downing College, Cambridge. Contributions by Charles Harpum and Edward Powell. Photography, design, and production by Tim Rawle.. Cambridge: Downing College. ISBN 978-0-9511620-1-9. 
• Watkin, David (2000). The Age of Wilkins: The Architecture of Improvement. Cambridge: Fitzwilliam Museum. ISBN 978-0-9538462-0-7. 
• Watkin, David (2004). The Architect King: George III and the Culture of the Enlightenment. London: Royal Collection Publications. ISBN 978-1-902163-50-5. 
• Watkin, David (2006). Radical Classicism: The Architecture of Quinlan Terry. New York: Rizzoli. ISBN 978-0-8478-2806-7. 
• Watkin, David (2015). The Practice of Classical Architecture: The Architecture of Quinlan and Francis Terry, 2005-2015. Foreword by Charles, Prince of Wales. New York: Rizzoli. ISBN 978-0-8478-4490-6. 
• Willis, Robert; Clark, John Willis (1886). The Architectural History of the University of Cambridge and of the Colleges of Cambridge and Eton. 1–4. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.