Magdalene College
A riverside college founded for Benedictine monks, home of Samuel Pepys's library and a Stirling Prize-winning new building.
Magdalene stands on the north bank of the Cam, across Magdalene Bridge from the centre of town. It began in 1428 as a hostel for Benedictine monks, and the river was part of the point: the founders wanted their students kept at a distance from the town's temptations. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries it was refounded in 1542 by Thomas Audley, Henry VIII's Lord Chancellor, and the name of Mary Magdalene dates from then. Say it "Maudlyn".
What to look for
- First Court and the Hall. The older buildings are mostly brick rather than stone, and the gatehouse and street front date from 1585. In the Hall, no gas or electric light has ever been installed, so dinner is lit by candles.
- The Pepys Building. Samuel Pepys, the diarist, came up to Magdalene in 1650, and his library was donated to the college in 1724, the date carved over the arch of the building that now holds it. Robert Hooke is recorded as having been involved in the design in 1677.
- The new library. Opened in July 2022 in a corner of the Fellows' Garden, this building by Niall McLaughlin Architects won the RIBA Stirling Prize that year, the first Oxbridge building to do so.
- The Village. On the other side of Magdalene Street, courts built between the 1920s and 1970s include a block by Edwin Lutyens and Mallory Court, named for the mountaineer George Mallory.
The chapel
The chapel sits in the north range of First Court and was the first college building put up, around 1470. Restoration has left little of the original fabric apart from the roof. Because the college is dedicated to Mary Magdalene, the east windows tell her story, showing scenes from the crucifixion and the days after it. It is small for a medieval foundation, in keeping with the size of the college.
The Fellows' Garden
Behind the Pepys Building, the Fellows' Garden began as a set of fishponds when the college was founded in 1428. They were filled in between 1586 and 1609, and the land was not laid out as a garden until the 1660s. A raised path along its edge, the Monk's Walk, follows an old Roman-era flood bank. Early twentieth-century replanting, led by the botanist Walter Gardiner, introduced many poplars, and quince, cherry and plum trees followed in the 1980s and 1990s.
Practical notes
The Porters' Lodge on Magdalene Street handles enquiries. The college's visitor pages invite everyone to use the chapel for a quiet moment, and the Robert Cripps Gallery stages visiting exhibitions. The Pepys Library is currently closed to visitors until 2027 for refurbishment, with no drop-in or group visits, so check the college website before planning around it. Magdalene is a short walk from St John's College and the foot of Castle Hill.
Nearby
Within a few minutes' walk
