Patrick Comerford
There are posters all over Cambridge this week and last for the Cambridge Shakespeare Festival, which began on 13 July and continues until 29 August. The festival is celebrating 39 years, and this year’s programme includes The Tempest and The Merchant of Venice in Downing College Gardens; Much Ado About Nothing and Romeo and Juliet in Saint John’s College Gardens; and A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Trinity College Gardens.
The festival was founded in 1987, and runs for eight weeks in July and August. In the past, when the festival coincided with IOCS summer schools in Sidney Sussex College, I have been were invited to a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Saint John’s College Gardens.
While I was walking around in Cambridge last week with a friend from Ireland, there were posters for the festival everywhere, and at the end of the day I decided to call into Downing College, where The Tempest (13 July to 1 August) and The Merchant of Venice (3 to 29 August ) are being staged.
Downing College was founded in 1800 and is often described as the oldest of the new colleges and the newest of the old colleges in Cambridge. It is on Regent Street, in the heart of Cambridge, and the entrance is opposite the front of the University Arms Hotel and the entrance to Parker’s Piece.
It was the only college to be added to the university between 1596 and 1869, and was formed ‘for the encouragement of the study of Law and Medicine and of the cognate subjects of Moral and Natural Science’. Downing has been named as one of the two most eco-friendly colleges in Cambridge and it has developed a reputation in both law and medicine.
It almost goes without saying that the names of Downing Street and Downing College share a common origin. Sir George Downing (1623-1684) was born in Dublin and was a Parliamentarian turned Royalist, who had been a Puritan chaplain and a Cromwellian diplomat, and later the ambassador at the Hague during the reign of Charles II.
Samuel Pepys once said Downing’s conduct was odious if useful to the king, called him a ‘perfidious rogue’ and reported that ‘all the world took notice of him for a most ungrateful villain for his pains’.
George Downing built Downing Street in Whitehall in the 1680s, including 10 Downing Street, later the official residence of the Prime Minister. When his grandson Sir George Downing (1685-1749) died, the family fortune and title passed to his cousin, Sir Jacob Downing (1717-1764). But the estates were to be used to found a college at Cambridge and when Sir Jacob died Downing College was supposed to come into existence.
However, Jacob’s widow Margaret refused to give up the estates and lengthy court cases followed. When she died in 1778 both her second husband, Admiral Sir George Bowyer (1740-1800), and her sister’s son continued to resist the terms of the original will until 1800, when the court decided in favour of Sir George Downing’s will. George III then granted Downing a royal charter, marking the official foundation of the college.
The trustees of the Downing estate included the Master of Clare College and Saint John’s College and the Archbishops of Canterbury and York. In 1806, they commissioned the architect William Wilkins (1778-1839) to design their new college.
Wilkins, who worked in the neo-classical architectural style, designed the first wholly campus-based college plan in the world, based on a magnificent entrance on Downing Street reaching back to form the largest court in Cambridge, extending to Lensfield Road. But this was not to be: the court cases greatly reduced the estate and the grand plans failed.
Much of the north side of what was then the Pembroke Leys was sold to the university and is now home to scientific buildings at the Downing Site. Initially, only limited east and west ranges were built, and the plans for a library and a chapel on the south face of the college were shelved.
The third side of the square was only completed in 1951 when the college chapel was built. Where the fourth side would have been is now a large paddock known simply as ‘The Paddock’, with many trees. Although not fully enclosed, the court formed before Downing College is perhaps the largest in Cambridge or Oxford – a boast that is contested by Trinity College’s Great Court.
The most recent building additions are the Howard Lodge, the Howard Building and the Howard Theatre which opened in 2010. The Heong Gallery, a modern art gallery, opened in 2016, is named after Alwyn Heong, an alumnus who is a supporter of the visual arts. The conversion of a stables building by Caruso St John won an RIBA award.
The college fields teams in a range of sports, including men’s football, men’s and women’s rugby and tennis, and Downing College Boat Club is successful too.
Downing students remain prominent in the academic world and Downing has a particular reputation as the ‘Law College’. The college is renowned for its strong legal tradition, being built up by Clive Parry, his pupil and successor John Hopkins and Graham Virgo.
Legal notables associated with Downing College include the late Sir John Smith, the pre-eminent criminal lawyer of his generation; Lord Collins of Mapesbury, the first solicitor to be appointed to the Court of Appeal and House of Lords; and Sir Robert Jennings, former president of the International Court of Justice.
The Dean of Chapel and chaplain, the Revd Dr Keith Eyeons, is a Fellow of Downing College and the Director of Studies for Theology, Religion and Philosophy of Religion. He was a teacher in Buckinghamshire before training for ordination.
He returned to Cambridge to work part-time as chaplain at Downing College, while also working part-time on a PhD on Karl Barth and Saint John’s Gospel, supervised by Professor David Ford. He is the author of The Theology of Everything and The View from the Centre.
His current research is on the potential interactions between physics and theology, especially the ontological significance of quantum field theory and general relativity, and the fine-tuning of the cosmos.
Downing College chapel is a focus for spirituality, prayer, worship, preaching, hospitality and friendship. The services include choral services on Sundays at 6 pm and on occasional Thursdays at 9 pm, daily prayers, compline and occasional talks and discussions.
