INFORMATION



There are 31 Colleges within the University of Cambridge. All students are housed in College accommodation and eat their meals in the College dining hall. This in itself gives a unique insight into the life of a Cambridge student.

Typical College Facilities

Bedrooms - Rooms are singles or twins. All bedrooms have a wardrobe, chest of drawers and windows. Rooms are attended to daily by the College’s ‘bedders’ (the traditional term for a maid) and sheets are changed weekly.
Classrooms - These are all within Cambridge. In the good summer weather we also take every opportunity to study in the College grounds.
Sports facilities – Each College has sports facilities. In addition there are numerous parks around Cambridge and the city Sports centre. There are also opportunities for our students to try traditional English past-times such as cricket, punting and croquet.
Computer facilities - We have a designated computer room that is open 9am-5pm for students to check email and surf the web. In addition there are numerous internet cafes around Cambridge.

Accommodation



Before the University - The Romans were first to build a town in Cambridge. It was a convenient crossing point for the ‘River Granta,’ now known as the ‘River Cam.’ Throughout Anglo-Saxon and Norman times, settlements tended to centre on what is now known as ‘Castle Hill’ for its fortification potential.

The University - It was in 1209 that scholars, taking refuge from hostile townsmen in Oxford, settled in Cambridge. Students soon flocked to Cambridge, although in its early years, these were largely clerks or clergymen in holy orders of some sort. It was not until 1284 that the first Cambridge College (of which there are now 31), Peterhouse, was founded. Colleges sprang up in the centuries to follow – the result of benefactions from donors including King Henry VIII.

In 1627, a clergyman by the name of John Harvard entered Cambridge, before emigrating to America in 1638 and founding Harvard University. Numerous scholars passed through Cambridge on their way to changing the way we see the world: Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron and Tennyson, several signatories of the American Declaration of Independence, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, F.R. Leavis, John Maynard Keynes, Crick & Watson, Sylvia Plath, Frederick Sanger, Ted Hughes and Stephen Hawking to name but a few.

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