North · Founded 1869
Girton College
The first residential women's college in Britain, deliberately founded at a distance from Cambridge, and still the college with the most expansive grounds in the university.
The college
A closer
look.
North — Huntingdon Road
Founded 1869. Founded in 1869 at Hitchin by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon as Britain's first residential college offering university-level education to women, it moved to Girton village in 1873 and was granted full Cambridge college status only in 1948, admitting men from the late 1970s.
Alfred Waterhouse's red-brick Victorian ranges, tower and long corridors set the character of the college, which spreads across some fifty acres of gardens, orchard and grounds two and a half miles north-west of the city centre.
On a visit
Don’t miss.
- 01Alfred Waterhouse's red-brick tower and ranges
- 02The Lawrence Room museum, open Thursday afternoons
- 03The Old Orchard and fifty acres of gardens and grounds
- 04The long Victorian corridors
- 05The chapel
Connected to
Notable
names.
- Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon (founders)
- Queen Margrethe II of Denmark
- Brenda Hale, Baroness Hale of Richmond (President of the UK Supreme Court)
- Hertha Ayrton (engineer and physicist)
- Arianna Huffington (publisher)
- Sandi Toksvig (broadcaster)
Before you go
Visiting Girton College
Visitors are welcome to look around the grounds without an appointment between 9am and 5pm daily, asking at the Porters' Lodge for a self-tour pamphlet; the college is closed to visitors in December and during the May and June exam period, and the Lawrence Room museum opens on Thursday afternoons from 2pm to 4pm.
Opening hours, admission and access change often — check the official site before you travel.
- Founded
- 1869
- Area
- North — Huntingdon Road
- Type
- College
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