Girton College

Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon set up Girton in 1869, giving Cambridge its first college for women. Its first home was Benslow House in Hitchin, deliberately kept at a distance from the university under the name College for Women, and moved to its present site in October 1873 once land had been bought near the village of Girton. It lies roughly two miles north-west of the city centre, so a visit is a short ride or walk out of town rather than a stop on King's Parade.

What to look for

• Waterhouse's red brick. Alfred Waterhouse designed the first phase, and the buildings expanded over some sixty years through successive generations of the Waterhouse family. Steep roofs, deep red brick and terracotta ornament make the main site a showpiece of Victorian architecture. The college describes its heritage buildings as Grade II* listed.
• Gatehouse Tower, dining hall and Stanley Library. The college itself singles out the neo-Tudor Gatehouse Tower, the beamed roof of the hall and the stained glass of the Stanley Library.
• The grounds. Around 50 acres of woodland, orchard, parkland and formal gardens surround the courts. Rooms run along corridors rather than staircases, a layout the college says differs from most other Cambridge colleges.
• A story of firsts. In 1873 three students sat the Tripos examinations unofficially, later called "the Pioneers". Women were admitted to full university membership in 1948, and in 1976 Girton voted to admit men, the first of the women's colleges to do so.

Before the college

Davies and Bodichon formed a committee in 1862 to find out whether girls might take the Senior and Junior Local Examinations run by Oxford or Cambridge. Three years later, 91 women entered the Cambridge Local Examination, a modest concession that stirred little opposition because it did not bring women to live in the university town. When Henry Sidgwick helped set up the Examinations for Women in 1869, pitched at an intermediate level, Davies opposed the idea, since she wanted women admitted to the Tripos itself. The first term opened on 16 October 1869 with five students; the first Mistress was the stepmother of a sixth, who was registered for a single term.

Growing from one block to a college of 180

The first building at Girton, which opened in 1873, cost £12,000 and was a single block, the east half of Old Wing, for thirteen students. Old Wing was completed in 1876 along with a laboratory and half the Hospital Wing. By 1884 the Hospital Wing was finished, and the Orchard Wing, Stanley Library and Old Kitchens had been added, for about eighty students. By 1902 the Tower Wing, Chapel Wing and Woodlands Wing, together with the Chapel and the Hall, brought the capacity to 180. Royal charter came only on 21 August 1924, from George V, and until 1948 neither Girton nor Newnham was part of the university itself.

Practical notes

Girton publishes self-guided walks, including a tour of the buildings, a garden tour and a dog-walking route. Paper copies are free at the Porters' Lodge. Its newer postgraduate site, Swirles Court at Eddington, opened in 2017 and is a short walk or cycle away. For another women's college, see Newnham.