The President's Gallery, Queens' College.
On the southern side of this court a passage (between the old Chapel and the Library) leads to the "Old Court," the original enclave of the College. This has remained practically unaltered since the Foundation, and is the best example remaining of the way in which a College was designed of old, after the fashion of the large country-house, as then built—Haddon Hall, for example, in Derbyshire. The red-brick and the white stone dressings, have mellowed, as elsewhere in Cambridge, to a tone of rich sombreness most restful and satisfying to the eye. The somewhat gaudy clock and clock tower are modern, as is also the yet gaudier sun-dial often, but erroneously, ascribed to Sir Isaac Newton. Over the Hall is emblazoned the very elaborate shield of the College, quartering the six bearings to which the poor little Queen Margaret laid claim—those of Hungary, Naples, Jerusalem, Anjou, Lorraine, and De Barre, all within a bordure "vert" added by Queen Elizabeth. Hence it is that green is to-day the distinctive Queens' colour at boating, cricket, etc.
Passing out of Queens', beneath the dignified gate-tower, we find ourselves in Queens' Lane, the quiet byway already referred to. Quiet byway as it now is, this was once a main street of Cambridge, known as Mill Street, forming (as it did before the great Colleges of King's, Trinity, and St. John's were built across it) the line of interior communication between the two bridges of the town, "the Small Bridge" by the King's Mill and "The Great Bridge" beneath the Castle. In those days it was a busy thoroughfare, thick set with burgher houses; now, in such broken lengths of it as survive, the buildings are almost wholly Collegiate. As we emerge from Queens' gate, and turn leftwards, we have on one side the dark-red bricks of that College, on the other the like buildings of St. Catharine's, while, at the further end of the street in front, our view is bounded by the white stone of the new gateway of King's. The whole effect is delightful.
Through this gateway we now make our way into the Premier[16] College of Cambridge, and soon find ourselves face to face with one of the most beautiful views of the world. Before us spreads a spacious lawn, the most extensive in existence,[17] bounded on three sides by the white and grey walls of College buildings, while on the fourth it merges into the wooded grass-land of the Backs; the river which divides it from these being scarcely perceptible from this point. We get a glimpse, however, of Clare Bridge, terminating the graceful façade of that College, which is in our immediate front. Behind us are the nineteenth-century additions to King's, and to our right front the fine pile of "Gibbs' Buildings," erected, in the eighteenth century, as a first attempt to approximate in some degree to the wishes of the Royal Founder, and transfer his College from the cramped position it had hitherto occupied, at the north of the Chapel, to the ampler site on the south which he had originally destined for it, and had cleared for his purpose by buying up and sweeping away, church and all, one of the most thickly populated parishes in Cambridge, that of "St. John Zachary" (i.e. St. John the Baptist), including a furlong's length of Mill Street.
Oriel in Queens' College.
For the scale on which Henry VI. intended to build was something hitherto quite unprecedented, and his plan took years to mature. The inspiration of it was originally caught from William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, whose genius first conceived the idea of twinned Colleges, in the provinces and at the University, from the former of which the Scholars should pass on to complete their education at the latter. This idea Wykeham himself first carried into effect by the foundation of the College at Winchester and of New College at Oxford. And, fired by his example, Henry VI., when only twenty, resolved on doing the same thing himself with truly Royal magnificence. His Scholars should begin their course at Eton, beneath the walls of Windsor Castle, his birthplace and favourite residence, and should thence pass to finish it at Cambridge, in the College which he would there dedicate to his own Patron Saint Nicolas, on whose Feast, December 6th (still "Founder's Day" to all Etonians and King's men), he was born.