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FEN COURT AT PETERHOUSE

FEN COURT AT PETERHOUSE, TRUMPINGTON STREET

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1350395
Date first listed:: 23-Jan-2003
List Entry Name:: FEN COURT AT PETERHOUSE
Statutory Address:: FEN COURT AT PETERHOUSE, TRUMPINGTON STREET

User submitted image — Uploaded by Brian Mawdsley This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1350395
Date first listed:: 23-Jan-2003
List Entry Name:: FEN COURT AT PETERHOUSE
Statutory Address 1:: FEN COURT AT PETERHOUSE, TRUMPINGTON STREET

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: FEN COURT AT PETERHOUSE, TRUMPINGTON STREET

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Cambridgeshire
District:: Cambridge (District Authority)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: TL 44780 57942

Details

CAMBRIDGE

667/0/10143 TRUMPINGTON STREET 23-JAN-03 (West side) Fen Court at Peterhouse

GV II

College residential building. 1939-40. By Hughes and Bicknell for the Master and Fellows of Peterhouse. Gault brick and in situ and precast cast concrete with 2nd floor roughcast and end stacks. Purple brick piers and pilotis. Flat roofs with glazed lantern. International Modern style. 'T' plan, the head of the 'T' being close to the Museum of Classical Archaeology (q.v.). 3 storeys and basement. Ranges of metal framed Crittall windows of 4-6 lights to ground and 1st floors and 2-6 lights to 2nd floor. Roughcast sill and lintel bands on lower floors to fronts facing the fen, mainly separate sills and lintels elsewhere. 2-window range at 1st floor to east facing south, 6-window range to west, curved at the end. The 4-window wing projecting forwards southwards is raised on pilotis but there is a basement underneath. The main entrance is in the head of the T underneath this wing on its axis. A stone moulded doorcase has a lintel carved with St Peter sinking in the waves and inscribed 'DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI' MCMXL. This was done in situ by Anthony Foster, a pupil of Eric Gill.

INTERIOR. Staircase hall has open well staircase with simple metal balustrade and wooden handrail. Glass brick full height window. Light well above has curved end with window opposite to end and part of each side. Above this is the tall circular lantern with continuous glazing. Rooms and sets have hardwood woodwork in different woods on each floor: doors with moulded architraves and a wall in each set has fitted bookshelves and cupboards with fire surrounds and panelling over.

This building has special architectural interest for the quality of its austere detailing, as being the only pre-war Cambridge college accommodation building in the International Modern style and the forerunner to other college buildings constructed at both Oxford and Cambridge after the war. The T plan was an inspired solution to a difficult site, giving as many views out over the fen as possible, the pilotis providing open access to the lawn looking over the fen for those in Gisborne Court (q.v.). It is also of historical interest as being built during the war. The Bursar had wisely assembled all the materials on site before hostilities were declared and the builders were those who had been deployed to help in repairs following any bomb attack on Cambridge. The basements were designed to serve as air-raid shelters, being constructed in reinforced concrete one foot thick and equipped with gas-tight doors. The building was funded by a bequest from Prof.W.Emery Barnes (d.1939) and the principal design architect, Hugh Castrees Hughes (1893 -1976), was a former Scholar of Peterhouse. The building 'captures something of the heroic and optimistic freshness of the best of the modern movement' (Ray) as well as being an important prototype constructed at a time of exceptional adversity.

SOURCES Kersting A.F. and Watkin D.J., Peterhouse: an Architectural Record 1284-1984, 1984. Architects' Journal, 23/10/1941, pp.276-277. Architectural Review, 10/1941, pp.105-107. Pevnser, N. The Buildings of England, Cambridgeshire, 1967, p.111. Taylor, N. Cambridge new Architecture, 1964, pp.26-7. Ray, N. Cambridge Architecture, 1994, p.104.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 489964
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Kersting, A F, Watkin, D J, Peterhouse: an architectural record 1284-1984, (1984)
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Cambridgeshire, (1967), 111
Ray, N, Cambridge Architecture, (1994), 104
Taylor, N, Cambridge New Architecture26-27
'Architects Journal' in 23 October, (1941), 276-277
'Architectural Review' in October, (1941), 105-107

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.