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MURRAY EDWARDS COLLEGE

ALTERNATIVE NAME:

NEW HALL COLLEGE

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A university college founded in 1954 as Cambridge's third women's college to promote a greater ratio of female students. However, fundraising lagged behind that for new male colleges, and though Peter (more commonly known as Joe) Chamberlin was appointed architect in 1959 following an invited competition, only subsequent grants from the Wolfson and Nuffield foundations made building possible. The college was constructed between 1962 and 1966 and at the core of the college are the dining room, common rooms and library, in bold white brick and concrete set around a courtyard. The abiding image is of the domed first-floor dining hall set sentinel over a reflective pool. Common rooms cluster round at ground-floor level. On the opposite side of the courtyard is the tall, narrow library. Beyond, the residential Orchard Court was built immediately afterwards, with a variety of single and shared rooms. Chamberlin also intended an entrance and chapel on the western side of the site, but these were never built, for lack of funds. The college was renamed Murray Edwards College in 2008.

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New Hall was founded in 1954 as Cambridge's third women's college to promote a greater ratio of female students. However, fundraising lagged behind that for new male colleges, and though Peter Chamberlin was appointed architect in 1959 following an invited competition, only subsequent grants from the Wolfson and Nuffield foundations made building possible. The college was constructed between 1962 and 1966 and at the core of the college are the dining room, common rooms and library, in bold white brick and concrete set around a courtyard. The abiding image is of the domed first-floor dining hall set sentinel over a reflective pool. Common rooms cluster round at ground-floor level. On the opposite side of the courtyard is the tall, narrow library. Beyond, the residential Orchard Court was built immediately afterwards, with a variety of single and shared rooms. Chamberlin also intended an entrance and chapel on the western side of the site, but these were never built, for lack of funds. (1-2, 4)

The college was renamed Murray Edwards College in 2008. (3)

The design brief required a building for 250 undergraduates, 30 research students and 30 Fellows. The western part of the plan for an entrance, chapel and two more residential ranges extending southwards to a detached principal's lodge was never built. None-the-less Chamberlin's finished building has been heralded, along others, as the high-water mark of the Modern Movement in Britain. In the 1990s Frank Woods and Martin Brett formalised the entrance at the east and added residential accommodation and a lecture theatre to the west. Further residential and conference facilities were added in 2001 by R.H. Partnership of Cambridge, who in 2003 remodelled the main building and added a service wing to the dining hall. (4)

At the time of writing (2011) access to the listed building description is through the National Heritage List for England. (5)

SOURCE TEXT

(1) List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest

Cambridge, amendment, 30-MAR-1993 667

(2) Elain Harwood 2000 England: a guide to post-war listed buildings

Page(s)3.80-3.82

(3) World Wide Web page

Murray Edwards College. (2009). Murray Edwards College home page http://www.murrayedwards.cam.ac.uk/ [accessed 17-DEC-2010]

(4) Harwood, Elain 2011 Chamberlin, Powell and Bon

Page(s)5-6, 46, 57-64, 134, 136

(5) World Wide Web page

English Heritage. 2011. The National Heritage List for England http://list.english-heritage.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1331922 [06-OCT-2011]

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