St John's College Master's Lodge, Cambridge
Replacing a lost lodge
In 1863, the old Master’s Lodge which had stood in first court of St John’s College since 1511 was swept away to make way for Sir George Gilbert Scott’s new Chapel. The necessity for a new Master’s Lodge was clear and pressing even before the old Lodge was demolished, and Scott wasted no time in setting to work on proposing plans for a replacement.
The genesis of the proposal was not straightforward- Scott went through five iterations of the design before finally landing on something that met with universal approval. His initial plan in 1862 was to incorporate accommodation for the Master in a new range integral with the chapel and projecting out at right angles into second court. It was soon concluded that instead, the Master’s Lodge should be a free standing building and four new proposals followed, all situated at totally different sites to each other. At one point, a paper profile of the Lodge was made so that it could be moved around and pinned at different locations on a map such was Scott’s uncertainty of the ideal location.
Still before demolition work had begun, Scott proposed another plan which saw part of the old chapel preserved and incorporated into an aisle for the new chapel with the original Master’s lodgings simply extended northwards. Next came two plans for freestanding lodgings- the first running northwards from second court and another situated round three sides of a new court overlooking the River Cam and accessed down a sweeping drive.
The final proposal
Scott’s fifth and final proposal was for yet another freestanding Lodge, this time taking the form of a long rectangular block separating the College from the Cam. This was the plan that was finally executed at a predicted cost of £7,500. Building work began in June 1863 when Messrs Jackson & Shaw were commissioned to oversee the ‘erection of the New Master’s Lodge with exterior Dressings in Bath Box ground stone’. Work began quickly, and some thirty ancillary buildings were demolished to clear the site.
The result is a handsome red brick building with characteristic black diapering, typical of the many brick college buildings put up in Cambridge during the sixteenth century. For the interiors, a substantial quantity of historic material was salvaged from the buildings which had to be demolished to make way for Scott’s new buildings. George Gilbert Scott Jr had matriculated at Jesus College, Cambridge in 1863 as the new Lodge was beginning to rise- there has been some suggestion, not least by Gavin Stamp, that Middle Scott (who had already been articled to his father) was put in charge of designing the interiors for the Master’s Lodge. Nevertheless, documentary proof of this theory is still yet to appear.
Bibliography
Butler, Richard. Secular & Domestic: George Gilbert Scott and the Master's Lodge of St John's College, Cambridge, (Cambridge: 2013)
Musson, Jeremy. ‘Magisterial and picturesque: The Master’s Lodge at St John’s College, Cambridge’ in Country Life (July 21 2020)
