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Cambridge’s colleges / an Above Guide story
The colleges that shaped Cambridge.
A defining chapter within the complete city guide—alongside Cambridge’s neighbourhoods, museums, pubs, culture and people.
01 / 35The Medieval Foundations
I
Scholars settle by the Cam
The Medieval Foundations
1284–1400From Peterhouse in 1284 to Corpus Christi — the only college founded by the townspeople — Cambridge’s first six colleges rise, three of them in the five-year shadow of the Black Death.
06 institutionsII
Kings, queens and chapels
The Royal Century
1401–1500Henry VI stakes his claim with King’s and its chapel, two queens found and refound Queens’, and monastic hostels and a nunnery are remade as colleges along the river.
05 institutionsIII
Faith remade, colleges refounded
Tudor & Reformation
1501–1600Lady Margaret Beaufort’s two foundations open the century; Henry VIII merges two medieval colleges into Trinity; and dissolved friaries become Emmanuel and Sidney Sussex, colleges of the Protestant cause.
05 institutionsIV
Two centuries without a founding
The Long Quiet
1601–1850After Sidney Sussex, no new college for 204 years — Newton’s Cambridge flourishes while the collegiate map freezes, until Downing is wrung out of a contested will and the dissenting academies edge toward the city.
03 institutionsV
The university opens its doors
Reform & the Women’s Colleges
1851–1900Girton and Newnham bring women to Cambridge against the grain, Fitzwilliam opens the university to students of modest means, and new theological houses gather at its edges.
08 institutionsVI
Graduates, science and new communities
Modern Cambridge
1901–todayThe scientific century builds its own colleges — Churchill as a national memorial, graduate societies from Darwin to Clare Hall, and Robinson, the newest of all, funded by a single gift.
08 institutions1284—today
The story is still being written.
Cambridge’s colleges remain working communities—not exhibits. Their next chapter is already underway.