Nevile's Court, Trinity College, Cambridge on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
Nevile's Court is a court in
/ref> The east side is dominated by the college's Hall, and the north and south sides house college rooms for fellows (and a few students) raised above the cloisters. The court is regarded as the
It was in the north cloister that
Trinity College Trinity College may refer to:
Australia
* Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales
* Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...
, Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
, England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
, created by a bequest by the college's master, Thomas Nevile
Thomas Nevile (died 1615) was an English clergyman and academic who was Dean of Peterborough (1591–1597) and Dean of Canterbury (1597–1615), Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge (1582–1593), and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge ...
.Stourton, E. 2011, Trinity: A Portrait . Third Millennium Press Limited. Available Online a/ref> The east side is dominated by the college's Hall, and the north and south sides house college rooms for fellows (and a few students) raised above the cloisters. The court is regarded as the
sanctum sanctorum
The Latin phrase ''sanctum sanctorum'' is a translation of the Hebrew term ''קֹדֶשׁ הַקֳּדָשִׁים'' (Qṓḏeš HaQŏḏāšîm), literally meaning Holy of Holies, which generally refers in Latin texts to the holiest place of t ...
of the college by fellows and students on account of the difficulty of obtaining rooms there.
It was in the north cloister that Isaac Newton
Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, Theology, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosophy, natural philosopher"), widely ...
stamped his foot to time the echoes and determine the speed of sound
The speed of sound is the distance travelled per unit of time by a sound wave as it propagates through an elastic medium. At , the speed of sound in air is about , or one kilometre in or one mile in . It depends strongly on temperature as we ...
for the first time.
The initial court, completed in 1612, was approximately 60% of its current length and its west side consisted of a wall in which was set a gate leading to the river-bank. (The gate, known as the ''Nevile Gate'', now stands as an entrance to the college from Trinity Lane.)
The west side was transformed from 1673 onwards when the master, Isaac Barrow
Isaac Barrow (October 1630 – 4 May 1677) was an English Christian theologian and mathematician who is generally given credit for his early role in the development of infinitesimal calculus; in particular, for proof of the fundamental theorem ...
, persuaded his friend Christopher Wren
Sir Christopher Wren PRS FRS (; – ) was one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history, as well as an anatomist, astronomer, geometer, and mathematician-physicist. He was accorded responsibility for rebuilding 52 church ...
to design a library for the college. The Wren Library
The Wren Library is the library of Trinity College in Cambridge. It was designed by Christopher Wren in 1676 and completed in 1695.
Description
The library is a single large room built over an open colonnade on the ground floor of Nevile' ...
was completed in 1695 and is a masterpiece of the classical style. At the same time, the north and south sides were extended to reach the new library. Rooms on the north side of the range were paid for by Sir Thomas Sclater, who laid out 800''l'' for the purpose. The "Old Guest Room" on the south side of the range bears the mottos 'Vernon semper viret' and 'Le bon temps viendra' in lozenges on the ceiling.
Nevile's Court was extensively restored and remodelled in the 18th century when the gable
A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aest ...
s, which are shown on the print of the College made by David Loggan, were removed.
References