Wren’s Design for a Senate House.
Our predecessors, in their arrangements for the “reconcination” or rebuilding of the Great Court, [149] ]naturally attached great importance to not interfering with King Edward’s Tower which had long been the chief entrance to King’s Hall and then stood near the present sundial. A suggested way of working this Tower into the scheme of the court is shown on the plan which hangs on the staircase leading to the library annexe; in this, a block one hundred feet long and thirty-four feet broad, was to be built over an open colonnade running eastwards from the Tower and ending in front of and a few yards from the Great Gate. The first floor of this block might have been used for the new library; or alternatively it might have been used for chambers, and the new library built elsewhere, for instance, as was suggested, on the site of the range of chambers which now stretches from the chapel to the turret staircase adjoining the lodge.
Neither of these proposals was then adopted, and our second library was not erected till Nevile, between 1594 and 1600, took the matter in hand. He provided for it a room seventy-five feet long and thirty feet broad on the second floor of the range connecting the Clock Tower and the lodge; it has since been converted into chambers.
Less than a century after Nevile’s library was finished, the Society again found it necessary to provide more book accommodation, and the result is the impressive and excellently designed building [150] ]which stands on the west side of Nevile’s Court. According to tradition, its erection, commenced in February 1676, was due to Barrow, then master of the College, who in the previous year had pressed the other heads of Houses to provide a room worthy of the University for its meetings, and urged that it should be of the best. Such schemes are expensive and cannot be effected without public spirit. Caution, it is said, carried the day, whereon Barrow, piqued at this faint-heartedness, declared that he would go to Trinity, “lay out the foundations of a building to enlarge his back court, and close it with a stately library, which should be more magnificent and costly than what he had proposed.... And he was as good as his word, for that very afternoon he ... staked out the very foundation upon which the building now stands.”
The story may be substantially true, for the long-cherished idea of building a university theatre and library was then in the hands of a syndicate: on the other hand the extant speech of Barrow in which he put forward his policy was not delivered till the Easter term 1676, and Wren’s designs for such a building are referred to the year 1678 and indicate that the scheme had not been then abandoned. But whether the anecdote be true or not, we may take it that the erection of our library was due to Barrow’s initiative, and that he personally raised a considerable sum towards its cost.
[151]
]Sir Christopher Wren, a warm personal friend of Barrow, was selected as the architect, and placed his services at the disposal of the College without remuneration. His original drawings are included in a collection of his designs preserved at All Souls’ College, Oxford, and by the kindness of that Society we have been allowed to take photographs of the plans which concern us. These relate to two plans for our library and one for a university commencement-house. The two plans for Trinity were made not later than 1675; they may have been submitted as alternatives, but there is a tradition that the second design was prepared only after the first had been rejected.
Nevile’s Court, as now arranged, contains three staircases on each of its sides, is closed on the east by the hall and small combination room block, and on the west by the library. In 1675 only two of the staircases on each side had been built, and the western ends of these were connected by a blank wall pierced in the middle by a gate, which is believed to have been later removed, stone by stone, and finally placed as the entrance to the College at the bottom of Trinity lane, where it now stands. Beyond this wall and between it and the river was the college tennis court. The land between Nevile’s Court and the river was selected as the site of the library.
Wren’s first design shows a double cylindrical shell about sixty-five feet across inside and ninety [152] ]feet high, surmounted by a dome and entered through a six-columned Ionic portico facing Nevile’s Court. On the ground floor was a lobby round which were stone seats. Above this the inside of the inner cylindrical shell was lined with bookshelves, and for convenience of approach there were three galleries. The room was lighted by windows in the dome and a superimposed lantern. The east side of the portico was half-way between the western ends of the court, and these ends were connected with the body of the library by low curved walls surmounted by iron rails. This building is described as “a very beautiful and most commodious model,” but it strikes the ordinary layman as poor in design, and I do not think that all Wren’s genius could have made it other than unsatisfactory. Why it was rejected we do not know, but few will doubt that the decision was wise.
Wren’s second or alternative design, which was adopted, shows a lofty oblong room about one hundred and fifty feet long by thirty-eight feet broad supported on a colonnade. Several of his drawings for this were engraved for the Architectural History of Cambridge by Willis and Clark, but the photographic reproductions of the originals—some with Wren’s notes attached—which are now available have an interest of their own. A careful study will show details which were subsequently modified. The present library was placed to the west of the [153] ]court as then built, and the rows of chambers on each side were extended to meet it. It is well-known that the shelves, cases, benches, tables, and book-rests now used were designed by Wren, and his drawings for them are reproduced in this series of photographs. The removal of all the bookcases except those fixed against the walls would enable us to judge the appearance intended by Wren. How fine the effect must have been, may be gathered from the plate in Le Keux’s Memorials or the engraving in the University Almanack of 1852.
Among Wren’s plans is also one for “a Theatre or Commencement-House with a Library annexed, according to an Intention for the University of Cambridge, about the year 1678, but not executed.” Whether this represents a sketch of the general plan which it is said that Barrow had suggested to the heads of Houses in 1675 it is impossible to say. The erection of a building on these lines might have been costly, but the result would have been a valuable addition to the architecture of Cambridge.