The Gibbs Building

Despite Provost Adams' efforts and the investment, the funds he raised were insufficient for building work to go ahead so the College’s fundraising continued. Building work commenced while the remaining funds were sought.

On 10 January 1723, it was agreed to pay James Gibbs fifty guineas “for his journeys, designing and drawing plans, surveying and laying out the ground for the intended building”. On 14 January 1723, it was resolved “that the west side of the intended new College be begun to be built” but the works did not begin until 25 March 1724. By this time, work was well under way on the nearby Senate House, which he had designed with James Burrough.

James Gibbs' own description of his designs can be read in his large volume entitled A Book of Architecture (see below).

The sale of timber continued. In 1726, John Humphry (a carpenter) bought 234 oak trees.

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, the belfry had fallen into decay and the five bells were damaged. In 1727, the College asked its Visitor for permission to sell the bells. The belfry was demolished in 1739 and after a period of storage in the antechapel, the bells were sold as scrap metal in 1754, raising £5633.10s.3d.

Further funds were raised by subscription. Robert Walpole, prior to becoming Prime Minister and only two years into building Houghton Hall, contributed £500. His brother-in-law, Viscount Townshend, gave £100. The Earl of Godolphin gave £500. Numerous others gave varying amounts but the largest contribution was from John Hungerford. He died in 1729, bequeathing two thirds of his estate subject to his widow’s life interest. She died c.1740 but there was a legal battle and the first instalment was not received until 1757. 

It is estimated that, including interest on loans, the total building costs were £12,839. The College’s debts for the Gibbs building were not paid off until 1758.

It is worth noting that like the Gibbs Building at King's College, the Radcliffe Camera in Oxford was designed by James Gibbs after consideration had been given to Hawksmoor, among others.

The Gibbs building is built of brick and Portland stone, with the exception of the foundation stone. When the Chapel stonemasons heard of Henry VI’s deposition they immediately abandoned their work in the midst of sawing a stone in half. That stone remained where it was for 260 years, in the space then known as the ‘Chapel yard’, until it was placed in the foundation of the Gibbs building. This stone can be seen in David Loggan’s engraving of the south front of the Chapel (below).

Work began on the foundations. Accounts show the leasing of land for bricks on 28 December 1723 and a payment to Gibbs on 10 January 1724. They also show that thousands of bricks were delivered to the site every few days, along with other materials such as clunch and stone. On 17 February 1724, those digging the foundation were allowed an extra 1s 2d each ‘for the day’s work on which the gold was found’, although there is no further record of that find. The College archives contain numerous contracts, agreements, invoices and receipts for works on what was then known as the ‘new building’.

The foundation stone was laid on 25 March (the day celebrated as Founder’s Day, at that time), with the event marked by a Sermon Before the University, given by Mr Gregory Doughty, and an anthem composed by Thomas Tudway. After the service, the Provost, accompanied by senior figures in the University and other Heads of Colleges, ‘proceeded to the corner of the foundation next the Chapel, where the first stone was to be laid, [and] bespoke success to the undertaking’ in Latin.

The building was occupied by 1732.

The following table provides a summary of some of the key changes to the Gibbs building, most of which can be found in Congregation or Council minutes (usually as the granting of permission for changes), Annual Reports and John Saltmarsh’s writings. In addition to these changes to the fabric of the Gibbs building, the installation of a flag pole, probably in the 1980s, is noteworthy.

Not surprisingly, for a building once known as the ‘Fellow’s Building’, the Gibbs building has been occupied by some of the most notable members of the College, including Provosts, Vice-Provosts, Bursars, Deans and Organists/Directors of Music. Obviously, in the case of Provosts, they would have been in the Provost’s Lodge while they held that office. A selection of such notable members, along with some of the offices they held, their room numbers and the approximate dates in which they occupied them can be found in the table below. The table is intended as a rough guide and should not be considered comprehensive. Some of these names will be familiar to regular readers of the Online Exhibitions and the Archive of the Month features. Links to relevant pages can be found at the bottom of this page.

It is worth mentioning a few of the lesser known or more surprising occupants.

Hamilton Hartridge came up to King’s in 1905 and was a Fellow 1912-27. Finding his Gibbs building set full of bats, he stretched silk threads across his room, turned off the lights, noted the bats’ evasive tactics, and suggested that it was done by echo-location. Sadly, he didn’t publish his findings and two Harvard men performed and published conclusive experiments in that field in the late 1930s.

Alexander Frederick Richmond Wollaston came up to King’s in 1893 and was made a Fellow in 1920 and (Senior) Tutor in 1928. On 3 June 1930 he was shot and killed in his rooms (G1) by a student whom he was trying to help. Wollaston left a bequest ‘for any purpose connected with the beautification of the place’, which resulted in the window boxes on the East face of the Gibbs building in the postcard seen above.

E.M. Forster’s memoir of Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson describes the rooms above the arch, decorated with advice from Roger Fry:

The most beautiful college set I know as well as the best loved… One room, crimson papered, looked into the front court, through the great semicircular window. There were two of Fry’s pictures here… Its walls had a grass-paper of grey-green, and on the floor was a Chinese carpet, featuring four thin pale-purple dragons on a biscuit-coloured ground.

The infamous ‘Wittgenstein’s poker’ incident took place in a meeting of the Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club, hosted by Richard Braithwaite in the Gibbs building.

• Austen-Leigh, R.A. (1907). Bygone King's: Being a Collection of Historical Views of the Buildings at King's College, Cambridge, with Descriptive Notes. Eton: Spottiswoode. 
• Clark, J.W. & Gray, A. (1921). Old plans of Cambridge, 1574-1798: by Richard Lyne, George Braun, John Hamond, Thomas Fuller, David Loggan and William Custance / Reproduced in facsimile, with descriptive text by J. Willis Clark and Arthur Gray., Cambridge: Bowes & Bowes.
• Colvin, H. (1954). A biographical dictionary of English architects, 1660-1840. London: J. Murray.
• Doig, A. (1979). The architectural drawings collection of King's College, Cambridge: A catalogue and historical synopsis of the major project drawings of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Amersham: Avebury.
• Downes, K. (1959). Hawksmoor. (Studies in architecture; v. 2). London: Zwemmer.
• Gibbs, Bowyer, Hulsberg, Harris, Kirkall, Mynde, . . . Baron, Bernard (1728). A book of architecture, containing designs of buildings and ornaments / By James Gibbs. London: Printed [by William Bowyer for the author].
• Little, B. (1955). The life and work of James Gibbs, 1682-1754. London: Batsford.
• Loggan, D. (1905). Cantabrigia illustrata: a series of views of the University and colleges and of Eton College. Cambridge: Macmillan & Bowes.
• Morris, C. (1989). King's College: A Short History. Cambridge: King's College.
• Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, (1959). An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the City of Cambridge. London: H.M.S.O. 
• Saltmarsh, J. (1958), King's College: a short history. Cambridge: Privately printed.
• Wilkinson, L.P. (1980). A Century of King's: 1873-1972. Cambridge: Kingʼs College.
• Willis, R. and J.W. Clark, (1866). The Architectural History of the University of Cambridge... vols. I and 4. Cambridge: University Press.
• Withers, J. (1929). A Register of admissions to King's College, Cambridge, 1797-1925 / compiled with short biographical notes by John J. Withers. (2nd ed.). London: J. Murray.