2012 Annual Report - Jesus College - University of Cambridge

The Renovations to Chapel Court
Nicholas Ray
CHAPEL COURT I Jesus College Annual Report 2012 13
As members old and new will know, Chapel Court is formed on its western side by the
Chapel itself, and the range of rooms begun at the foundation of the college and
continued northwards, in identical style, in 1822, and even later in the early twentieth
century. The Court was extended on its eastern side, however, by two buildings of very
different character, which have now been renovated together as a single contract with a
value of about £8 million. The red brick range, a fragment of what was intended to form a
whole court, dates from 1884 and was designed by Carpenter and Ingelow. It was
memorably described by the great twentieth-century architectural historian Nikolaus
Pevsner, as “a wholly dull design, red brick with a central gatehouse, as if it were some
kind of training college”. This range included 36 sets of rooms and a ground floor lecture
room, and was useful enough, though somewhat inefficient. In 1950, its internal planning
was altered to form a further 27 sets, which were described at the time as “something half
way between a normal set and a bed-sitting room”. The new rooms were provided, for the
first time, with hot and cold water to wash-basins in each room. Small gyps were included,
though these were later modified as they presented a fire risk. The second portion of
Chapel Court was the work of Percy Morley Horder, an architect of considerable skill and
subtlety, in 1927-30. His intention was to revert to the pattern of the earlier college ranges,
using a pale brick and similar window pattern, but he needed to join on to Carpenter and
Ingelow’s building and weave round East House (by the same architects, and placed
awkwardly in relation to Morley Horder’s proposed extension). This he achieved by facing
Morley Horder’s sketch, east side of the Angel Arch