Photo: Cmglee · CC BY-SA 3.0
Central-S · Founded 1584
Emmanuel College
The Puritan foundation that educated John Harvard, whose bequest founded Harvard University, and a city-centre college with a Wren chapel and unusually generous gardens.
The college
A closer
look.
Central-s — St Andrew's Street
Founded 1584. Founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay, Elizabeth I's Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the site of a thirteenth-century Dominican friary, as a Protestant college to train clergy — an ethos that drew Puritan families and, in time, emigrants to New England.
Christopher Wren's chapel of 1677, with its arcaded gallery, closes Front Court in confident English Baroque, while the eighteenth-century Classical facade on St Andrew's Street conceals gardens, a duck pond in the Paddock and ranges from the college's Elizabethan beginnings.
On a visit
Don’t miss.
- 01Wren's chapel of 1677 and its arcaded gallery
- 02Front Court and the Westmorland Building
- 03The duck pond in the Paddock
- 04The John Harvard commemorative window in the chapel
- 05The Fellows' Garden plane tree
Connected to
Notable
names.
- John Harvard (benefactor of Harvard University)
- William Sancroft (Archbishop of Canterbury)
- Thomas Young (polymath and physicist)
- Graham Chapman (Monty Python)
- Sebastian Faulks (novelist)
- Griff Rhys Jones (comedian and writer)
Before you go
Visiting Emmanuel College
The grounds and chapel are open to the public daily between 9am and 6pm with no charge for entry, via the Porters' Lodge on St Andrew's Street; any temporary closures are notified on the college website.
Opening hours, admission and access change often — check the official site before you travel.
- Founded
- 1584
- Area
- Central-s — St Andrew's Street
- Type
- College
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