Bishop Alcock’s gate-tower, a few years earlier than those of Christ’s and St John’s, and almost contemporary with that of Queens’, forms a charming prelude to this beautiful college. Its stepped battlements are original, and its plan is more domestic than those of the other towers, which have a very monastic appearance. The founder’s coat-of-arms, the three cocks which the college has ever since borne as its cognisance, appear on various parts of the tower and in the roof of the gateway; but the statue of Bishop Alcock and a good deal of the decoration are new.[5] The tower is the entrance to the outer court of the college, whose ivy-grown buildings date from 1641. They are very fair[147] late Gothic work and carefully follow Alcock’s tower in their general lines; they are due to Richard Sterne (master, 1633-1644 and again in 1660), but they were not actually finished until the beginning of George the First’s reign. They occupy three sides of the court; the western side is open, affording a good view of the towers in the centre of the town. From the opposite side a low postern gateway (part of the original work) leads into the inner court of the college, round which the public buildings are situated. The Hall is on the north side; opposite it is the Master’s Lodge and the nave of the chapel. The Library occupies the west side, and the northern transept of the chapel the east side. This was originally the cloister of the nunnery which was superseded by the college. The cloisters which exist are subsequent to the founding of the college, and for some time were shut in, like those at Wilton House. In the last century, however, they were opened to the court, and now they are simply of the ordinary covered type, without any wall of partition. A few years ago, while repairs were being carried on in the eastern wall of these cloisters, just[148] north of the transept-end of the chapel, a beautiful triple arch of the Early English period was laid open, and may now be examined. This was probably the entrance to the nuns’ chapter-house. It is a very unique and delicate piece of work, dating probably from about 1240, and compares very well with the excellent work of that period to be found in Cambridgeshire.

Part of the chapel dates from the foundation of the nunnery, but a great deal of it is Early English, and the whole building was remodelled by Alcock on the collegiate principle. He seems to have cut away the aisles of the convent church, leaving only the north choir aisle; he left the transepts unchanged, save for a set of Perpendicular windows with scanty tracery, which are repeated in the nave and choir. His east window has been taken away and the Early English triplet restored. He thus made an ordinary monastic building into an aisleless cruciform church, differing from a college chapel only in that it retains a nave, in which respect it is unique. He also added the Perpendicular upper storey to the central tower, the lower half of[149] which is Early English, and corresponds in its interior arcading with the arches in the cloister. The upper storey of this earlier tower had fallen in 1297. On the whole, one can hardly give unqualified praise to Alcock for his treatment of the building, but he made it answer his purposes very well. Moreover, he gave it some beautiful stalls and a screen. Unfortunately, these ornaments offended Georgian taste. The restoration of the chapel in the last century was a wonderful proceeding. The walls were daubed with yellow relieved by a low black dado, the ceiling was plastered, the best part of the woodwork was removed to Landbeach Church, five miles on the way to Ely, and the central lantern was closed up, so that the fine arcade was completely hidden. To-day, however, we are able to see the chapel without these encumbrances, for the restoration, begun in 1845 and continued to our own day, has made it the most historical interior in Cambridge. The south transept with its eastern gallery is for the most part Norman of a very simple order, coeval with the foundation of the monastery. The central tower, the choir and chancel are Early English, save for Alcock’s additions[150] on the south side, and the remaining aisle, which contains Decorated work. The arcaded lancets on the north side of the chancel should be noticed: this singularly graceful arrangement is almost unique. There is, however, an example, completer and perhaps finer, at Cherry Hinton, within an hour’s walk of Cambridge. Another specimen of local work is the double piscina, whose splendid mouldings, crossing each other in the head of the arch, and reminding one of well-folded linen, are only to be found in three or four churches in, or immediately round the town. I have spoken of Alcock’s Perpendicular work, which is of a kind more domestic than ecclesiastical. The stalls and screen are rather more than forty years old, but they show a taste of a kind unusual at that time, and are much improved by the dim light of the whole building. This dimness is due to the stained glass, which is all modern. The glass in the lancets is by Hardman; it is not very good, but it is unobtrusive. That in Alcock’s two choir windows was put in rather earlier by the restorers of 1845-9; it is the great defect in their work. But the eleven perpendicular windows of[151] the antechapel, including the enormous south window, have been filled with glass by Sir Edward Burne-Jones and Mr William Morris; and their magnificent, if somewhat secular, work, serves to hide the shallowness and unoriginality of the stonework. It is a pity that, in one or two places, the colours already show signs of decaying; but, on the whole, the two great artists seldom collaborated to such purpose or found such excellent material for their work. The organ at the west end is new, and there is perhaps too little space for it. The older organ, a small instrument with a triptych front, is in the choir aisle, and has an appearance strongly suggestive of the bygone monasticism of the place.

The rest of the Court, Hall, Library and Master’s Lodge are much as the founder left them, although their outer shell has been from time to time considerably altered. The Hall, with its dark lobby on the ground floor and its staircase, is a fine room, occupying the position of the convent refectory. There are some good portraits here and in the Combination Room, including one of Cranmer in the manner of Holbein.[152] The Hall was wainscoted early in the last century. Since then and since the completion of the outer court, the college has received no structural additions to its main body.[6] Within the last thirty years, however, the need for accommodation has increased; and we owe to it, first, Messrs Carpenter and Ingelow’s brick range of buildings north of the college and their houses for married tutors; and, secondly, the great building, also of brick, which Waterhouse built about 1869 at the end of the garden east of the chapel. His work here is better than usual, and forms a picturesque outpost to the colleges as one crosses the end of Midsummer Common by the Newmarket Road. The Jesus close, with its great palisade of trees and its view of the boathouses on one side and the venerable chapel tower on the other, almost rivals the Backs in beauty.

John Alcock, Bishop of Ely, whose chantry chapel by Torregiano is one of the chief glories of his diocesan cathedral, left a more important monument to posterity in the shape of Jesus College. In 1497 he obtained a charter for his foundation, which succeeded a[153] house of Benedictine nuns, existing under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin and St Rhadegund. This religious establishment had been founded in 1133 by favour of Malcolm IV. of Scotland, Earl of Huntingdon, and its chief benefactress was Constance of France, daughter of Louis VI. and widow of King Stephen’s son Eustace. Started under these auspices, it became one of the most important conventual houses in Cambridge, and received in its various vicissitudes help from divers quarters. In 1297, the chapel tower fell; there were fires in 1343 and 1376; in 1390, the buildings were seriously injured by a storm. It is possible that the morality of the house, which enjoyed great popularity, grew lax, and that the change was necessary. This was at all events the excuse for the disestablishment of the convent. However, Mr Clark, in his chapter on the college, proves with great likelihood that these complaints were merely superficial. The fact is that the demand for education was increasing, and t............