Pembroke College

Pembroke College, founded in 1347, is one of Cambridge's older colleges and has a pleasant character quite different from the grander Trinity or St John's — more intimate, less overrun with visitors. The college chapel, designed by Christopher Wren in 1663, was Wren's first completed architectural work and is a beautiful, restrained piece of early English Baroque, quite unlike the Gothic chapels that dominate elsewhere in Cambridge.

The gardens and the old court are free to visit most of the time; check at the porter's lodge. Notable alumni include William Pitt the Younger (who came up at 14 and became Prime Minister at 24), Spenser, Ridley, and Ted Hughes.

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A story
Christopher Wren designed Pembroke's chapel in 1663 as a gift to his uncle Matthew Wren, who had been imprisoned in the Tower of London for 18 years during the Civil War and Interregnum and had vowed to build a chapel if he survived. It was Wren's first completed building — the beginning of the career that produced St Paul's Cathedral, the Sheldonian, and 52 City of London churches. Matthew Wren lived to see it consecrated at the age of 82.

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