Cambridge Colleges: Pembroke

       Originally named the Hall of Valence Mary, Pembroke College is the third oldest of Cambridge's 31 colleges and it's licence was granted to Marie de St. Pol (1303-1377) widow of the Earl of Pembroke,  She had petitioned for the right to found a body of students and fellows within the fledgling University at Cambridge.  Marie, widowed young by her much older husband after only three years of marriage, fostered her new college through it's first three decades of life, helping guide and shape the school to give preference to students form France who had already studied elsewhere in England, and helping lay the foundation of academic excellence that Pembroke prides itself in even today.  the Hall of Valence de Mary eventually became Pembroke Hall, and finaly in 1856, Pembroke College.

       Pembroke is the oldest college within Cambridge to sit on it's original site to this day, and to maintain it's original constitution unbroken.  The colleges founding, and the building of the first college chapel in Cambridge, required Papal Bulls, not something that many of the newer colleges ever had to pursue in order to gain their place at the University of Cambridge.
       Home to over 700 students and fellows, Pembroke is among the largest colleges in Cambridge and sports buildings from almost ever era of Cambridge's history, including the oldest gatehouse still standing in Cambridge today.  Because of it's history, and the fact that the college grew over time, Pembroke has a series of courtyards and gardens, the oldest buildings surrounding "old court" or the original site of the college, and a second court and series of gardens which wrap around the newer chapel (the original was converted to a library) and the more modern(ish) accommodations.

 Pembroke has a student cafe open to the public most days, and like many of the Cambridge Colleges the student groups within Pembroke offer a variety of opportunities for students and fellows to participate in University life, including Pembroke Boat Club and a whole slew of other student organizations that serve not only Pembroke students, but students from across the breadth of the University of Cambridge.
     

 Consecrated in 1665, the Pembroke Chapel was the first designed by Christopher Wren, the architect of St. Pauls' Cathedral whose renowned work included the rebuilding of over 50 London churches after the great fire of 1666, and oddly enough a significant number of the currently standing structures at the University of Oxford.  The high soaring ceiling of the Pembroke Chapel defines a shift in the architecture of college chapels in Cambridge, and represents the diversity of eras represented within the Pembroke site itself.  
   

   Pembroke's notable alumni include Nobel Prize winners William Fowler and John Sulstan, Computer Scientist Yorick Wilks, Poet Thomas Gray, Edmund Grindal, Archbishop of Canterbury, and British Prime Minister William Pitt The Younger.  During it's early years, Pembroke encouraged students to report their course mates if they were seen in "houses if disrepute" or drinking (at least according to Wikipedia), however today Pembroke is home to a lively and highly affordable student bar, something that it's early masters may not have completely approved.
     

 Today Pembroke is one of the friendliest, if smallest, colleges open to regular tourist visitors.  Charging no fee, and providing a series of beautiful paths through some of the most well-tended gardens present in any of Cambridge's many colleges, Pembroke is the picture of what Cambridge evokes in people's minds around the world.
     And yes, even one of Cambridge's most esteemed, oldest colleges, adheres to the idea that all things potentially dangerous, must be labeled.