The Sidgwick Site is one of the largest sites within the

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Overview and history

The Sidgwick Site is located on the western side of

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 ...

city centre, near

the Backs The Backs is a picturesque area to the east of Queen's Road in the city of Cambridge, England, where several colleges of the University of Cambridge back on to the River Cam, their grounds covering both banks of the river. National Trust chairm ...

. The site is north of

Sidgwick Avenue Sidgwick Avenue is a road located in western Cambridge, England. The avenue runs east-west and links Grange Road to the west with Queen's Road to the east. The line of the road continues northeast into central Cambridge as Silver Street. Sidg ...

and south of West Road, and is home to several of the university's

arts The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both hi ...

and

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at the t ...

faculties. The site is named after the philosopher

Henry Sidgwick Henry Sidgwick (; 31 May 1838 – 28 August 1900) was an English utilitarian philosopher and economist. He was the Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1883 until his death, and is best known in philos ...

, who studied at Cambridge in the 19th century. The site as it is now has its origins in plans drawn up by Casson and Conder in 1952 for making use of land to the west of the Cambridge city centre which was previously used mainly for sports. Much of the site's current architecture derives from these original plans. However, many faculty buildings, especially to the north of the site, have been designed by separate architects with little reference to the coherence of the site as a whole. In July 2002, the old Faculty of English, a converted Victorian villa, was demolished, and a more practical building designed by

Allies and Morrison Allies and Morrison LLP is an architecture and urban planning practice based in London and Cambridge. Founded in 1984, the practice is now one of Britain's largest architectural firms. The practice's work ranges from architecture and interio ...

to reflect the needs of the faculty was completed in 2004. The

Alison Richard Dame Alison Fettes Richard, (born 1 March 1948) is an English anthropologist, conservationist and university administrator. She was the 344th Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, the third Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge since the po ...

Building, completed in 2012 and designed by

Nicholas Hare Architects Nicholas Hare Architects is a UK architectural practice, with a portfolio of award-winning projects. These include schools, higher education, refurbishment, commercial projects, and buildings for the arts. Founded by Nicholas Hare in 1977, the pr ...

, brings together a number of different research groups (Interdisciplinary Geographical Centres), the new department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) and the Centre for Research in Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH). On 29 October 2006, ''Education Not For Sale'' supporters at Cambridge University organised the first occupation in the UK in protest at the introduction of top-up fees on the Sidgwick Site Lecture Hall, occupying it for 12 hours. In 2009, Cambridge Gaza Solidarity occupied three lecture theatres and the common area of the Law Faculty. On 22 February 2022, Cambridge Defend Education, a student-led campaign group, occupied a lecture block declaring support for the current

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strike.

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, although not directly involved in the occupation issued a statement in support of the action, declaring themselves opposed to the marketisation of education. Although less popular now, the site was formerly a thriving location with the local skateboarding community because of its undercover benches, numerous sets of stairs and L-shaped concrete banks. These features have since been amended to discourage skateboarding.

Faculties on the Sidgwick Site

The following University of Cambridge faculties and departments are located on the site: * Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies * Faculty of Classics with the Museum of Classical Archaeology * Faculty of English, incorporating the

Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic The Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic (ASNC or, informally, ASNaC) is one of the constituent departments of the University of Cambridge, and focuses on the history, material culture, languages and literatures of the various peoples who i ...

Faculty of Music A faculty is a division within a university or college comprising one subject area or a group of related subject areas, possibly also delimited by level (e.g. undergraduate). In American usage such divisions are generally referred to as colleges ...

* Faculty of History * Faculty of Law * Department of Politics and International Studies * Faculty of Modern & Medieval Languages *

Faculty of Economics A faculty is a division within a university or college comprising one subject area or a group of related subject areas, possibly also delimited by level (e.g. undergraduate). In American usage such divisions are generally referred to as colleges ...

* Faculty of Divinity *

Faculty of Philosophy A faculty is a division within a university or college comprising one subject area or a group of related subject areas, possibly also delimited by level (e.g. undergraduate). In American usage such divisions are generally referred to as colleges ...

* Institute of Criminology * Centre of Latin American Studies The Department of Land Economy is planned to move to the Sidgwick Site.

Facilities

The site has a buttery which sells snacks and drinks throughout the day with seating inside and a number of picnic tables outside. There is also an Origin8 which offers a soup of the day, hot panini and wraps, sandwiches, snacks, and various drinks, and a number of food and drink machines along with seating in basement of the Law faculty building. The Modern & Medieval Languages faculty has tea/coffee machines on all floors and a snack machine. There is a student prayer room on the Sidgwick Site located at the back of Lecture Block A. Here, the University Islamic Society holds Jamaat five times a day.

References

External links

Map
{{coord, 52.20165, N, 0.10900, E, display=title, region:GB_type:landmark University of Cambridge sites

Overview and history

Faculties on the Sidgwick Site

Facilities

See also

References

External links