Clare College Archives, University of Cambridge

In 1326, the University, under the Chancellorship of Richard de Badew, founded University Hall, two messuages in Milne Street being assigned as a residence for its scholars. Little is known of the new college, but within a decade of its foundation, the founder was forced to seek a patron to rebuild the college, possibly after a disastrous fire. It was presumably Badew’s connection with the Clares that he turned to Lady Elizabeth de Clare for assistance and she refounded it as Clare Hall, endowing it with the advowsons of Littlington in 1336 and Great Gransden and Duxford in 1346, and providing it with a set of statutes in 1356. Thus provision was made for a Master and 15 Scholars (later called Fellows) and also 10 poor scholars.
Thanks to multiple endowments, including land at Potton, Everton and Gamlingay, Clare’s wealth and size grew steadily until it was necessary to completely rebuild the college. After a long legal wrangle, land was acquired from King’s College and between 1638 and the early eighteenth century, the buildings that form Old Court were erected together with the bridge which was completed in 1640. Further substantial additions to the College were not required until the twentieth century, when Memorial Court, designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, built on the West side of the river, was opened in 1926 and extended later in the century. As admission numbers continued to rise, further extensions to College accommodation saw college property on Chesterton Lane consolidated into The Colony and St Regis Flats on Chesterton Road.

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