England Guide
East Anglia
Queens' College
Opening time: Mid-March to mid-May Mon– Fri 11am–3pm, Sat & Sun 10am–4.30pm; late June to Sept daily 10am–4.30pm; Oct Mon– Fri 1.45–4.30pm, Sat & Sun 10am–4.30pm; Nov to mid-March daily 1.45–4.30pm
Price: £2 in summer, otherwise free
Address: Queens' Lane
Telephone: 01223/335 511
Website: www.queens.cam.ac.uk
Queens' College is one of the most popular colleges with university applicants, and it's not difficult to see why. In the Old Court and the Cloister Court, Queens' possesses two fairy-tale Tudor courtyards, with the first of the two the perfect illustration of the original collegiate ideal with kitchens, library, chapel, hall and rooms all set around a tiny green. Cloister Court is flanked by the Long Gallery of the President's Lodge, the last remaining half-timbered building in the university, and, in its southeast corner, by the tower where Erasmus is thought to have beavered away during his four years here, probably from 1510 to 1514. The college Hall, off "the screens" passage between the two courts, holds mantel tiles by William Morris, and portraits of Erasmus and one of the college's co-founders, Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Edward IV. Equally eye-catching is the wooden Mathematical Bridge over the River Cam (visible for free from the Silver Street Bridge), a copy of the mid-eighteenth-century original, which – so it was claimed – would stay in place even if the nuts and bolts were removed.