St Edmund's College

St Edmund’s College stands on Mount Pleasant in northwest Cambridge, a short distance from other mature-student colleges. Founded in 1896 by the Duke of Norfolk and Baron Anatole von Hügel, it was set up to house Catholic students at a time when the Church still barred them from Oxbridge. The college takes its name from St Edmund of Abingdon, a 13th-century Archbishop of Canterbury. Its visitor is always the Archbishop of Westminster, reflecting its Catholic identity. The site was once Roman Cambridge, and the campus still feels like a garden on the city’s edge. The college is worth the journey for its role in British Catholic history and its later academic achievements. It began as a lodging house for priests reading university subjects and became a graduate college in the 1960s. Among its notable members are cosmologist Georges Lemaître and Olympic medalists in rowing. The chapel, consecrated in 1916, is a Grade II listed building with a striking stained-glass window of St Boniface. A bronze statue of St Edmund of Abingdon stands at the chapel’s entrance. Visitors find a mix of historic and modern buildings set in landscaped grounds. The Norfolk Building, the oldest, houses the dining hall and Combination Room. The Okinaga Tower offers views across the city from its Master’s Lodge. Nearby, White Cottage once held the Von Hügel Institute, a centre for Catholic scholarship. The college library and gym occupy the Luzio building, while newer halls provide modern accommodation. The chapel choir performs concerts with counterparts from Oxford and another Cambridge college.