The New Colleges

The next important phase of college building began in the 1960s, and produced 7 more colleges.

These colleges have a distinctive look and feel and are built on the edges of the city rather than in stone around a medieval court.

They were designed for a university that had stopped being small, clerical and closed.

Churchill College was first established in 1960.

It was founded by a trust chaired by Winston Churchill and has a very 1960s feel - with brick, concrete and wooden interiors.

By statute 70% of its students still read maths, science, engineering or technology.

Fun fact : the college holds Winston Churchill's own papers, over a million documents, in an archive built for them in 1973 - along with those of Margaret Thatcher.

The same wave also created a set of colleges for people who were not 18-year-old undergraduates.

Darwin came first, in 1964, as the first graduate-only college in Cambridge (a famous alumna : primatologist Jane Goodall).

Lucy Cavendish followed in 1965 for mature women students (with 90% of its students today from state schools).

Wolfson opened the same year - with no high table and no separate senior common room, so fellows, visiting academics and students all eat and sit together, which is rare in Cambridge.

Clare Hall came in 1966 with a focus on accommodating families.

Homerton was formally recognised in 2010 - and is now the college with the most students.

Finally Robinson was created in 1981 and is the newest foundation among the 31 Cambridge colleges.

It was sponsored by Sir David Robinson, a businessman who had made his money renting out televisions - and was the first college designed from the outset for students of both sexes.

Fun fact : Robinson's gift of 18 million pounds is the largest the university has ever accepted and he spent part of it on a chapel whose stained glass was made by John Piper and Patrick Reyntiens, who reglazed Coventry Cathedral after the war.