College Arms on the Cambridge Train Station Façade, Part 2

Continuing our look at the arms of the Colleges of Cambridge University along the front of the train station in Cambridge, and still going from right to left, we come to the arms of:

Jesus College (we'll be seeing more of these arms in later posts). The arms are basically those of the founder, John Alcock, Bishop of Ely. In 1575 the College was granted a crest as an addition to the arms 'of longe tyme borne'. The mitre on the fess is person to John Alcock, and the red border charged with gold crowns is from the arms of the See of Ely;

Queens' College. The arms are those of Margaret of Anjou, Queen to King Henry VI, differenced by a border, and were granted to the College in this form in 1575;

Corpus Christi College. The College resulted from the union of two guilds of Cambridge, Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin Mary. During the Reformation, some people took offense at the then arms of the College, Archbishop Matthew Parker, Master of Corpus Christi in 1544 and 1553, obtained a new grant of arms in 1570 from Robert Cooke, Clarenceux King of Arms, in the present form;

Gonville and Caius College (Caius is pronounced "Kees", and you should be grateful it's not Cholomdeley, pronounced "Chumlee". No, really!). The College was founded in 1348 by Edmund Gonville, Rector of Terrington, the first founder, and Dr. John Caius, the third founder. Their arms are Gonville impaling Caius, all within a border compony sable and argent. (Yes, the Caius arms are very complex: Or semy of flowers gentle, in the middle of the chief a sengrene resting upon the heads of two serpents in pale, their tails knit together, all in proper colour, resting upon a square marble stone vert, beetween their breasts a book sable garnished gules, buckled or);

Clare College (we'll be seeing more depictions of this coat of arms, too, since the conference we attended was held at Clare College). The arms are those of the College's Patroness, Elizabeth, Lady of Clare, a cousin of King Edward III, on the dexter side (as her own honor and inheritance were superior to that of her husband, impaling the arms of her first husband, John de Burgh, all within a bordure sable goutty d'or, the black bordure with golden tears being adopted by her as a sign of mourning following the death of her third husband;

(on the façade of the train station, the arms of the City, University, and four local dignitaries appear here) and Peterhouse College. The arms were granted in 1575, and are based on the arms of the founder, Hugh de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. The College's arms are those of the Bishop differenced with the red bordure charged with gold crowns taken from the arms of the See of Ely.

Next time, more College arms from the train station!

College Arms on the Cambridge Train Station Façade, Part 1

Having covered the non-College arms on the façade of the train station in Cambridge, England, last time (the City of Cambridge, Cambridge University, and four local dignitaries at the time the station was opened in 1845), this post, and the next three following, will cover the arms of individual Colleges that appear on the walls of the station.

Unlike last time, where we went from left to right, for these other train station posts I am going to go in the order in which the photographs were taken, that is to say, right to left.

I am doing it this way only because it's a little easier for me to do them in the order they were taken, rather than the reverse. But it's my blog, and I'm allowed to be a little lazy if I feel like it.

Anyway, from right (beyond the frame of the picture above) to left, we have the arms of:

Girton College. These arms were granted in 1928, and the charges and tinctures are taken from heraldic insignia associated with four individuals concerned in the founding of the College: Mr. H.R. Tomkinson; Madame Bodichon (née Leigh Smith); Henriette Maria, Lady Stanley of Alderley; and Miss Emily Davies:

Fitzwilliam College. The arms were granted in 1974, but were long used by the College's predecessor, Fitzwilliam House, an organization for non-collegiate students:

Downing College. The arms were granted to the College in 1801, and consist of the arms of the founder, Sir George Downing, 3rd Baronet, differenced by the blue border charged with white roses:

Emmanuel College. (We'll be seeing more of the arms of Emmanuel College in later posts.) The arms were granted in 1588, following the Royal Charter from Queen Elizabeth I and Deed of Foundation in 1584. The lion is taken from the 'ancient arms' of Mildmay (the College was founded by Sir Walter Mildmay) allowed by Robert Cooke, Clarenceux King of Arms, to the founder on evidence now regarded as suspect:

Trinity College. The arms were attributed to Trinity College in Parker's Catalogus (1572), and they were recorded as the arms of the College by Robert Cooke, Clarenceux King of Arms in his Visitation of 1575;

and Sidney Sussex College. The arms are those of the foundress, Lady Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex (Radcliffe impaling Sydney). These arms were granted to the College in 1675:

Next time, more Colleges!

Well, Now, How Do I Go About Organizing These Arms!

I mean, really, there are several ways to do it, each and every one of which could be called the "correct" way, and each and every one of which is lacking in one way or another.

What am I talking about organizing? All of the roundels containing coats of arms on the façade of the train station in Cambridge, England. (For just a part of them, see the image directly below.) Because there are a lot of them. One source says there are 32; I only photographed 31, so either I missed one, or there is a duplicate on the façade. (Christ's College and St. John's College both use the same coat of arms, but may have been given separate roundels on the building.)

In any event, some sort of organization is needed, because even 31 coats of arms is a few too many for a single blog post. So in the end, rather that simply going from one end of the station to the other and organizing them from left to right (or from right to left, which is the order in which I took them), I'm going to start in the middle, with the arms of the City and of the University, flanking those of four individuals, "local dignitaries from when the station opened in 1845." All the rest of the arms are those of individual colleges at the University, and we will cover those in the next several posts.

So, to begin:

The City of Cambridge, on the left side of this series:

And the University of Cambridge on the right:

Then between the City and the University, going from left to right, we have:

The arms of Francis George Godolphin D'Arcy D'Arcy-Osborne, 7th Duke of Leeds (High Steward of Cambridge 1836-1850), Quarterly: 1 and 4, Quarterly ermine and azure a cross or (Osborne); 2 and 3, Gules a double-headed eagle displayed between in chief two fleurs-de-lis argent (Godolphin).

The arms of Admiral Charles Philip Yorke, 4th Earl of Hardwicke (Lord Lieutenant of Cambridgeshire 1834-1873), Argent on a saltire azure a bezant.

The arms of Hugh Percy, 3rd Duke of Northumberland (Chancellor of Cambridge University 1840-1847), Quarterly, 1 and 4: Grand-quarterly, i and iv, Or a lion rampant azure; ii and iii, Gules three lucies [they only show the heads of the fishes here, but I suppose they did what they could in the space available to them] haurient argent (Lucy); 3 and 3, Azure five fusils conjoined in fess argent [error: the fusils should be or] (Percy).

And finally, the arms of John Singleton Copley, 1st Baron Lyndhurst (High Steward of Cambridge University 1840-1863), son of the well-known painter John Singleton Copley. Argent a cross flory sable within a bordure azure charged with eight escallops or [error: the escallops should be argent].

And there you have it! All of the non-College arms on the façade of the Cambridge train station.

Next time, College arms galore!

Sometimes Heraldry Is Just Outside Your Hotel Room Window

On our recent trip to Cambridge, England, we stayed at a hotel in central Cambridge. Looking out the window, as we always do if only to see what the view may be, was a building whose façade was undergoing some renovation, as witnessed by all of the scaffolding.

Here's the view from our window:

And this one was taken from the street level, looking back along the front of the building:

It turns out that this is the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences in Cambridge.

And if you click on the first picture of the Sedgwick, above, to see a larger version, you might notice -- as I did at the time -- a row of shields between the windows of the top floor below the dormer windows. It turns out that these shields are of a number of the colleges of Cambridge University.

And going from right to left, here are close-ups of each of them (most at least partially obscured by the scaffolding). First, we have the arms of Jesus College:

Next, the arms of St. Catherine's College:

Queens College:

Kings College:

Corpus Christi College:

Gonville and Caius College. For those of you who are interested, Caius is pronounced "Kees":

And, finally, the arms of Clare College:

You will be seeing a lot more of these coats of arms, and a bunch of others, many in full color, as I continue our heraldic tour of Cambridge, so keep watching!

Finally, not quite heraldic, as it is something more like an impresa,* we have the main gate into the Sedgwick Museum:

Directly over the central gate is this impresa:

The altar in front of the crowned maiden with milk flowing from both breasts, who holds a sun in her right hand and a covered cup in her left, bears the words Alma Mater Cantabrigia (Cantabrigia being the Latin name of Cambridge). The surround bears the words Hinc lucem et pocula sacra (which Cambridge University says means "From hence we receive light and draughts of sacred learning", though my Latin-English dictionary gave me a much abbreviated form, "Hence the light and sacred cup". Both, I suppose, are reasonable translations. No doubt the trees on either side represent the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge.

Like any good impresa, this one is jam-packed with symbolism and meaning.

Next time, we'll see some more college heraldry. Stay tuned!

* Impresa: a device with a motto used in the 16th and 17th centuries. They were very popular in Italy, and you can even find a book on-line at Google Books about them published in 1555, and again in 1574 with illustrations, the Dialogo dell'imprese militari et amorose, by Paolo Giovio. 

The Cambridge Union Society and the University's Coat of Arms

So last time, we looked at some of the ways the University of Cambridge uses its arms in and about the City of Cambridge. This time, we're going to look at its use as part of the badge of the Cambridge Union Society (usually just referred to as the Cambridge Union), founded in 1815, a debating and free speech society at the University.

And because the opening ceremony of the conference we attended in Cambridge was held at the Cambridge Union building, we saw many instances of the Cambridge Union badge, which has the arms of the University prominently placed at its center.

And here, in no particular order, we find:

I did find it a bit disconcerting, taking photographs of what I thought was the arms of the University, only to find out on closer inspection that a number of them were, in fact, the badge of the Cambridge Union. Still, if you look carefully, they are easy enough to differentiate. All of the Cambridge Union badges clearly state either around the shield (for the oldest one) or on a scroll beneath the shield, "Cambridge Union Society", and most of the depictions also give the year of the establishment of the Cambridge Union, 1815.

So there you have it! Not the arms of the University of Cambridge per se, but the badge of the Cambridge Union Society which merely incorporates the arms of the University.

Big difference. Big difference. Huge. </Sarcasm off>

No, I get it. I really do. I understand why they have done this.

I just don't necessarily agree with it personally. But there you go; they never asked me before doing it, and I have to assume that they don't care a fig for my opinion about it now.

Pardon me, while I go off to tilt at some other windmill now.

And Then, Of Course ....

After the arms of the City of Cambridge, there are, of course, the arms of the University of Cambridge (Gules on a cross ermine between four lions passant guardant or a closed book fesswise gules clasped and garnished or, the clasps downward, granted in 1573).

If you turn around when leaving the train station, it is one of the first coats of arms you will see in the City.

And, naturally enough, given that Cambridge truly is a "college town", you will find the arms of the University all over the place in a number of different media.

For example, on a gate at one of the (many!) schools there:

Over a doorway at one of the University's constituent colleges:

At the University Press Bookshop:

On a banner inside the Cambridge Union:

In stained glass in a window in the same Union:

And, of course, carved in stone:

It was a treat to see the arms of the University of Cambridge in so many forms in so many different places!

But ... as we will see next time, the Cambridge Union also uses the arms of the University.

Stay tuned for our next exciting episode!