Gilbert Earl of Clare founded her college and in 1340 she obtained possession of University Hall,[119] and decreed in 1359 that it should thenceforth be known as the “House of Clare.”[120]
The scheme of building of Clare Hall was quadrangular; but no college was longer in the building. A hall, combination room, and Master’s room were on the west, while the chapel at the north-east angle was not built till 1535.[121] The scholars had till then kept their prayers in the parish church of S. Zachary and in the south chancel aisle of S. Edward’s. The present chapel was not begun till 1764. As we see it now Clare is a homogeneous piece of work of the time of Charles I., and in its classical beauty is one of the finest in Cambridge. This complete rebuilding occupied twenty-six years—from 1635 to 1661. There is no record of the architect, though an unsupported tradition points to Inigo Jones.
When one pictures Clare Hall it is to recall “the Backs,” the characteristic feature of Cambridge scenery which rivals the beauty of “the gardens” in the sister university. The grounds of the succession of collegiate buildings fronting the ancient High Street, with sloping lawns, bowling green, and fellows’ garden, extend along the backs of the colleges beyond the narrow river over which each college throws its bridge, and beyond again runs the well known road and the college playgrounds.
Clare is supposed to have been the “Soler hall” of Chaucer’s Tale.[122] It has enjoyed the reputation of a fashionable college, and indeed of a “sporting college.” It no doubt enjoyed the former reputation from the first, as a foundation under the patronage of the great house of Clare, and furnished some of the overdressed dandies who flocked to Cambridge in Chaucer’s time, as well as his “pore” Yorkshire “scolers” or others like them. Ralph Cudworth was Master of the college; Tillotson Archbishop of Canterbury, the martyr bishop Latimer, and Whiston the successor of Newton were its fellows; and Nicholas Heath primate of York, Sir George Downing, Cole the antiquary, Townshend, Chancellor of the Exchequer, the first Marquis Cornwallis, Brodrick Archbishop of Cashel, and Whitehead the laureate were its alumni. It was founded for 20 fellows or scholars, 6 of whom were to be in priests’ orders. In 1634 there were 15 fellows and 32 scholars, in all 106 inmates. In the time of Caius there had been 129, and in the middle of the xviii century there were about 100. There are
