Today I am going to share with you pictures and a little history of Selwyn College at Cambridge. It is one of the 31 colleges that make up Cambridge University in England and where I stayed this summer during my summer program at Cambridge.
The Cambridge International Summer Programme is a four week program offered over the summer to students from 18-90+ from all over the world. There are 100+ courses to choose from and we can stay in the college dorms. I chose old court at Selwyn College.
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Selwyn College
The old court was built in the 1880s when Selwyn was founded. It has four beautiful brick buildings in Victorian Late Perpendicular Gothic Revival that are the dorms, dinning hall and chapel that surround the lawn. Sadly the lawn was not doing so great in the summer. The ivy was beautiful and green!
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Selwyn was named after George Augustus Selwyn who was the first Bishop of New Zealand. George was also an alumni of Cambridge, receiving his bachelors in 1831, his Masters in 1834, and his Doctor of Divinity in 1842. He was a fellow (or teacher) at St. John's college from 1833-1840.
To honor his life and legacy this college was built to provide an education to all.
The charter stated:
The charter declared that the college was "founded and constituted with the especial object and intent of providing persons desirous of academic education and willing to live economically with a College wherein sober living and high culture of the mind may be combined with Christian training based upon the principles of the Church of England".
Chapel
One of my favorite parts of Selwyn is the Chapel. It was built in 1895. The doors were always open and I went in often, to look at the stained glass and listen to the organ and sometimes to think and rest.
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One day I was sitting in the garden and heard a choir singing in the chapel, it was beautiful. They were practicing for a funeral that was to be later that afternoon.
Another day a student was practicing the organ. Gorgeous.
One day after my Looking at Art Slowly class I went to the chapel and looked at the stained glass slowly. It really is so beautiful. Here are some details of the wood work on the chapel benches.
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Dining Hall or The Hall
The dining hall was very impressive and I liked the food, especially breakfast. I loved the full English breakfast each morning, and the croissants, I had a couple each morning!
One of my favorite things about the dining hall was that you could sit next to anyone and start a conversation. People were so friendly and interesting in this program. They were from all over the world. I made friends from Brazil, Netherlands, Poland, Ireland, India, Denmark, Singapore, China, Croatia, Belgium and more...
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The hall was built in 1909 with the help of Richard Appleton who was a fellow of Trinity College and masters in 1907-1909. You can see the resemblance of Selwyn's dinning hall and Trinity's dinning hall.
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| Selwyn | Trinity |
Dorm
I enjoyed staying in the dorm. My room was plenty big and comfortable. The bathroom and shower were on the landing and shared between four rooms (I never saw any one else using them) and SO SMALL. I had to shimmy around to use them. That's ok. I am one for adventure and experience and it was a great experience living on campus for two weeks. I was able to get the same room both times, even with a week in between.
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Garden
In addition to the chapel my other favorite place at Selwyn was the garden. It was a beautiful peaceful place. My friend, Katherine, who told me about the opportunity also told me about the Selwyn garden!
A few more photos at Selwyn. I have very happy memories of the time spent there and all the great people I met. You will see the laundry facility. I was England for 3.5 weeks so I used this a couple of times!
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Sources:
The Cambridge International Summer Programme
Selwyn College- History
Selwyn College, Cambridge- Wikipedia