England Guide
East Anglia
St John's College
Opening time: March– Oct daily 10am–5.30pm; Nov– Feb Sat & Sun 10am–5.30pm
Price: £2.80
Address: St John's Street
Telephone: 01223/338 600
Website: www.joh.cam.ac.uk
St John's College sports a grandiloquent Tudor gatehouse, which is distinguished by the coat of arms of the founder, Lady Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII, held aloft by two spotted, mythical beasts. Beyond, three successive courts lead to the river, but there's an excess of dull reddish brickwork here – enough for Wordsworth, who lived above the kitchens on F staircase, to describe the place as "gloomy". The arcade on the far side of Third Court leads through to the Bridge of Sighs, a chunky, covered bridge built in 1831 but in most respects very unlike its Venetian namesake. The bridge is best viewed from the much older – and much more stylish – Wren-designed bridge a few yards to the south. The Bridge of Sighs links the old college with the fanciful nineteenth-century New Court, a crenellated neo-Gothic extravaganza topped by a feast of dinky stone chimneys and pinnacles.