Alfred Waterhouse

Alfred Waterhouse (1830-1905) was an English architect, linked above all with the Gothic Revival. His best-known buildings include the Natural History Museum in London and Manchester Town Hall. From 1865 until he retired he was almost continually at work for one or both of Oxford and Cambridge.

Girton College

Emily Davies commissioned him to design Girton College, his only new college at either of the old universities. The building is Gothic in red brick and terracotta, and most of the main site was built between 1872 and 1887. The first phase was dated 1871-75, and the gatehouse tower followed in 1886-87. Rooms are reached along corridors rather than the staircases found in most Cambridge colleges. The final phase added an indoor swimming pool, which is unusual among Cambridge colleges.

Cambridge Union Society

The debating society's premises on Bridge Street were designed by Waterhouse and formally opened on 30 October 1866. Sir Charles Dilke, a future Liberal politician, was the president chiefly responsible for the project. The commission covered a debating hall, a smoking room and a caretaker's house, and he returned about twenty years later to double the size with a new wing. The Union Society building has a debating chamber among its rooms.

Pembroke College

At Pembroke College he had a generous budget of £70,000. He added the Master's Lodge and the range called the Red Buildings in the early 1870s, in a French Gothic style of red brick with stone dressings. A new hall followed, as did rooms for fellows and a library with a bold clock tower. W. D. Caroe later added the Pitt Building between Ivy Court and Waterhouse's Lodge.

Sidney Street

The former Fosters' Bank on Sidney Street was designed by Waterhouse and built in the early 1890s. It is Jacobethan in style, with a clock tower above the main entrance and an octagonal domed banking hall inside. The name Fosters' is still carved over the doorway.

Visiting

Girton lies outside the centre, while the Union building and the Sidney Street bank can be seen from the street.