Fitzwilliam College

Fitzwilliam's story begins in 1869, when the university let men enrol without joining a college, under the oversight of a board. The idea was to open Cambridge to students who could not afford a college's fees, and eight students were admitted that first autumn. Their base was Fitzwilliam Hall, opposite the Fitzwilliam Museum on Trumpington Street. The institution moved to its present site in 1963 and received its royal charter as an independent college in 1966.

What to look for

• The Grove. At the centre of the site is a Grade II Regency house built in 1813. Emma Darwin, widow of Charles, lived here between 1883 and 1896 and had rooms lined with William Morris wallpaper.
• The 1960s buildings. The first courts and the central hall building opened in 1963, and the later chapel (1991) and New Court (1985) followed. In 2024 the Central Hall Building, New Court and Chapel were all listed Grade II.
• The dinner gong. Outside the dining hall hangs the bell of the aircraft carrier HMS Ocean, presented to the college in 1962.
• The gardens. Borders, a French-style potager and a wild flower meadow sit among lawns the college explicitly invites you to walk on. An archaeological dig in 2008 turned up the remains of a 3,500-year-old farmstead on the site, the earliest clear sign of settlement in Cambridge.

Building the college backwards

Denys Lasdun designed the first two courts and the central building, completed in 1963, and they were meant to be the back of the college. As money allowed, it spread south: New Court in 1985, the Chapel in 1991 and Wilson Court in 1994. Gatehouse Court, finished in 2003, finally became the front. An auditorium followed in 2004, a boathouse on the Cam in 2007 and the Library and IT Centre in 2009. In 2010 the college took over the buildings and grounds of the former Cambridge Lodge Hotel, intending them for graduate students. Today it has five linked courts around large rectangular gardens, and most of the buildings are modern in design.

From Fitzwilliam Hall to Fitzwilliam College

The students themselves picked the name "Fitzwilliam" at a meeting of the Non-Collegiate Amalgamation Club in 1887, after which the university allowed the Trumpington Street house to be called Fitzwilliam Hall. It became Fitzwilliam House in 1922. The new establishment borrowed the arms of the Fitzwilliam family, with which it had no connection, and added the university's arms across the top. When grants made Cambridge easier to afford, the need for a non-collegiate body faded, and the prospect of closure caused an outcry among former students; the answer was to seek college status and a new site.

Practical notes

The college stands off Storey's Way in the north-west of the city and is one of the "Hill Colleges", alongside Churchill College, St Edmund's College, Girton College and Murray Edwards College. Its visitor page says that Fitz is always open to visitors, and the Porters' Lodge, staffed around the clock, is on 01223 332000. The students chose the name Fitzwilliam in 1887, and the museum opposite their first home on Trumpington Street has its own page: Fitzwilliam Museum.