page_title: Alfred Waterhouse
section_title: Oxford and Cambridge universities
hierarchical_section_title: Alfred Waterhouse / London practice (1865–1902) / Educational buildings / Oxford and Cambridge universities
caption_attribution_description: Cambridge, Girton College. 1 photomechanical print&#160;: photochrom, color.
context_page_description: Alfred Waterhouse RA PPRIBA was an English architect, particularly associated with the Victorian Gothic Revival architecture, although he designed using other architectural styles as well. He is perhaps best known for his design for Manchester Town Hall and the Natural History Museum in London, although he also built a wide variety of other buildings throughout the country. Besides his most famous public buildings he designed other town halls, the Manchester Assize buildings—bombed in World War II, and the adjacent Strangeways Prison. He also designed several hospitals, the most architecturally interesting being the Royal Infirmary Liverpool and University College Hospital London. He was particularly active in designing buildings for universities, including both Oxford and Cambridge but also what became Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds universities. He designed many country houses, the most important being Eaton Hall in Cheshire, largely demolished in 1961-63. He designed several bank buildings and offices for insurance companies, most notably the Prudential Assurance Company. Although not a major church designer he produced several notable churches and chapels.
context_section_description: Colleges at both the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge would commission buildings from Waterhouse, indeed from 1865 to his retirement he was almost at continual work at one or both Universities. In (1865–67) the Cambridge Union Society commissioned a new debating hall, smoking room and caretaker's house, he returned twenty years later to double the size of the building with a new wing. At Balliol College, Oxford, his first work was the new Master's Lodge facing Broad Street and the main range L-shaped with a tower above the entrance to the college with a lecture hall (1866–71), in style French thirteenth-century Gothic. In (1873–78) he designed the new Great Hall. Charles Eastlake in 1872 described the style of the new buildings:
  The new buildings for Balliol College, Oxford, for example show Mr Waterhouse kept up with the stream of advancing taste without losing that individuality of design which every true artist wished to retain. A Marked improvement is observable in the breadth and vigour with which this work is treated as compared with earlier examples of his skill. It contrasts strangely, indeed, with the old buildings by which it is surrounded, but as a matter of sentiment it may be questioned whether such a contrast is not an advantage when it is explained by a difference of style as well as of date, while as a matter of taste posterity alone will fairly judge between Oxford of the fifteenth and Oxford of the Nineteenth century.
  In 1866 he was approached to rebuild and extended part of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, this is Tree Court built (1868–70), that provided sixty sets of rooms in a four-storey building. Building News magazine reviewed the design of Tree Court in the May 1869 issue:
  Mr Waterhouse is constructing new buildings for Gonville and Caius College Cambridge in a curious and somewhat heavy Jacobitish [sic] style. The view shows two fronts; one next a narrow street of low gabled houses, in which he introduces square oriels to every student's room on the first floor; he has an oriel at one corner of the building one storey high, and at the corresponding corner three stories high. There is a general appearance of heaviness every way, his oriels and other projections are not sufficiently well corbelled out to relieve them from an appearance of giving way from the weight.....This is really a good picturesque design, and the detail is in character with that of the old part of the college, and infinitely better than his version of Gothic
  At Gonville and Caius, out of deference to the Renaissance treatment of the older parts of the college, this Gothic element was intentionally mingled with classic detail,  the steep roofs are reminiscent of French Renaissance buildings. He returned to Gonville and Caius in 1883 to add a new lecture theatre block. In (1868–70) Waterhouse added to Jesus College, Cambridge a new three-storey range of undergraduate rooms, in red brick with stone dressings in style matching the existing Tudor buildings. He also restored the Master's Lodge and added a new gateway. At Trinity Hall, Cambridge (1870–73) he added the East range of the South Court, housing sets of rooms over four floors.  At Pembroke College, Cambridge, with a generous budget of £70,000 (over £8,000,000 in 2019) he added the new Master's Lodge (1871–73) and South Range known as the Red Buildings (1871–72), he used a French Gothic style for the buildings. They are of red brick with stone dressings. He went on to design the new Hall in (1875–79), fellows' sets and a new library (1877–78), with its bold clock tower. In (1878–80) the Oxford Union commissioned an extension from Waterhouse, consisting of a new debating hall.
  He was commissioned by Emily Davies to design his only new college at either of the ancient universities, the Women's college Girton College, Cambridge. Gothic of red brick and terracotta.
  Emily writing in a letter in 1866 to her friend Anna Richardson, in which she outlined her vision for the college:
  ..to be as beautiful as the Assize Courts Manchester, with gardens and gr
caption: Girton College, Cambridge, showing the building phases of 1883–85 & 1886-89
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