page_title: Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
section_title: Old Courts
hierarchical_section_title: Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge / Buildings and grounds / Old Courts
caption_attribution_description: English: University of Cambridge, Gonville and Caius Tree Court, Cambridge
context_page_description: Gonville & Caius College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. The college is the fourth-oldest college at the University of Cambridge and one of the wealthiest. The college has been attended by many students who have gone on to significant accomplishment, including fifteen Nobel Prize winners, the second-most of any Oxbridge college.
  The college has long historical associations with medical teaching, especially due to its alumni physicians: John Caius and William Harvey. Other famous alumni in the sciences include Francis Crick, James Chadwick and Howard Florey. Stephen Hawking, previously Cambridge's Lucasian Chair of Mathematics Emeritus, was a fellow of the college until his death in 2018. The college also maintains reputable academic programmes in many other disciplines, including law, economics, English literature and history.
  Several streets in the city, such as Harvey Road, Glisson Road and Gresham Road, are named after alumni of the College.
context_section_description: The first buildings to be erected on the college's current site date from 1353 when Bateman built Gonville Court. The college chapel was added in 1393 with the Old Hall (used until recently as a library) and Master's Lodge following in the next half century. Most of the stone used to build the college came from Ramsey Abbey near Ramsey, Cambridgeshire. Gonville and Caius has the oldest purpose-built college chapel in either Oxford or Cambridge which has been in continuous use as such. The chapel is situated centrally within the college, reflecting the college's religious foundation.
  On the re-foundation by Caius, the college was expanded and updated. In 1565 the building of Caius Court began, and Caius planted an avenue of trees in what is now known as Tree Court. He was also responsible for the building of the college's three gates, symbolising the path of academic life. On matriculation, one arrives at the Gate of Humility (near the Porters' Lodge). In the centre of the college one passes through the Gate of Virtue regularly. And finally, graduating students pass through the Gate of Honour on their way to the neighbouring Senate House to receive their degrees. The Gate of Honour, at the south side of Caius Court, though the most direct way from the Old Courts to the College Library (Cockerell Building), is only used for special occasions such as graduation. The students of Gonville and Caius commonly refer to the fourth gate in the college, between Tree Court and Gonville Court, which also gives access to some lavatories, as the Gate of Necessity.
  The buildings of Gonville Court were given classical facades in the 1750s, and the Old Library and the Hall were designed by Anthony Salvin in 1854. On the wall of the Hall hangs a college flag which in 1912 was flown at the South Pole by Cambridge's Edward Adrian Wilson during the famous Terra Nova Expedition of 1910–1913. Gonville Court, though remodelled in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is the oldest part of the college. New lecture rooms were designed by Alfred Waterhouse and completed by Rattee and Kett in 1884.
  Tree Court is the largest of the Old Courts. It is so named because John Caius planted an avenue of trees there. Although none of the original trees survive, the court retains a number of trees and the tree-lined avenue, which is unusual for a Cambridge front court.
caption: Gonville and Caius Tree Court
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