Dossier CCA: G/1/1/1 - Accounts for rebuilding Clare College [Buildings Account Book]

1 volume paper

The building accounts were maintained at first by the Bursar, Barnabas Oley and then by others including Samuel Blythe (Blithe) when Master. The volume begins with various quotations from the Old Testament including "Incipit hic liber cum Anno (et quod melius est cum Deo opt Max) Die Januarii primo. Anno Dni 1635" [1636]. The accounts are generally arranged under building material with headings of bricks, timber, stone etc and there are also pages devoted to specific parts of the building. So it is not a straightforward chronological record. There are regular entries for payments to the mason Thomas Grumbold and his son from folio 20 and a special payment of 3s to Grumbold for his "draught" (plan) of the bridge on 18 January 1638 [1639] is on folio 62. The volume includes a list of benefactions, 1636 - 1670 and accounts for rebuilding tenements in Shoemaker Row (now Market Street), Cambridge, 1715 - 1716.

See also rough copy of detailed building accounts, 1662 - 1705

This account book is referred to at length by Wardale in his history of Clare College and by Willis & Clark in their Architectural History of the University of Cambridge (vol 1.)