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Gonville and Caius

If we're to measure centrallity in the traditional sense of 'distance from Great St Mary's Church', Caius (pronounced 'keys') is the most central of all Cambridge colleges. It's also one of the oldest, richest, and most academically successful, making it unarguably a good all-round college. Oh, and you can't help but bump into Stephen Hawking who is a fellow.

Founded as Gonville Hall in 1348, the college was refounded in 1557 by Doctor John Caius, physician to the rich and famous of London (and also immortalised in Shakespeare's the Merry Wives of Windsor). Since that day, Caius has had strong ties with medicine, being considered 'the medic college' by most people, accepting around 20 medics per year, who tend to perform well above average in the exams.

Caius also has the reputation of having rather awful food. This is largely unfair, the reason for this stereotype being its unusual dinner ticket system - students must purchase 40 dinner tickets to eat in hall per term, which can be sometimes inconvenient. There are two halls Sunday to Friday, informal and formal, with the only major difference being formal hall requires the wearing of gowns on top of your normal clothes, and the slightly slower, more relaxed service. Both halls are waiter service, with three courses. On saturday, there is only one hall, which is cafeteria style. Caius has the distinction of being one of only two colleges to have blue gowns (instead of black), the other being Trinity.

First years students live on West Road, just across the river, and directly next to the Sidgwick Site where arts subject lectures take place. There are three buildings - Harvey Court, the 1960s monstrosity which is rather dated, but has the huge positive of having all rooms inward facing, with large communal balconies, making it a very sociable place. Over the next few years it planned for Harvey Court to be refurbished in stages. The basement of Harvey Court there are computer rooms, (free) laundry rooms, and a brand new gym. Next to Harvey Court is the Stephen Hawking Building, opened in 2006. Around half of the first years are randomly allocated to live in here, and it's an amazing building. Extremely modern with all rooms en suite, I'd venture to say it's the nicest accommodation block in the whole Cambridge. Finally, there is K-block, a georgian mansion converted into around 10 huge rooms. Most of these are reserved for music students, since they are large enough to have pianos inside, as well as other luxuries such as dining tables and multiple wardrobes! West Road is also the location of the college gardens, which are a reasonable size and nice to sit in in the summer months.

At the main college site itself, there are five courts - Gonville Court, Caius Court and Tree Court (so called because it's full of trees, which is very unusual for a Cambridge college!), and St Mary's and St Mike's Court just across the street. All these are the locations of fellows' rooms where supervisions may take place, as well as housing for undergraduates in their second and third years (and beyond). Caius also owns a whole street of Houses on Mortimer Road, just past Parker's Piece, as well as housing on Green Street and Rose Crescent in town, and Glisson Road near the station.

The three gates of Caius are quite well known - they are the Gate of Humility, passed through upon matriculation, the Gate of Virtue, intended to be passed through daily, and the Gate of Honour, passed through upon graduation. The clocktower above the Gate of Honour is pictured above.

Caius is quite a sporty college, having very active football, rugby, hockey, badminton and lacrosse teams, to name but a few. The college sports grounds are located on Barty Road, a five minute walk from Harvey Court, and have free to use tennis courts, squash courts, sports pitches, and a club house (with bar!). We also have an extremely successful boat club, achieving the first ever double Mays headship, as well as maintaining the men's headship of the river in May Bumps for 5 whole years between 2002 and 2007. All of these sports clubs welcome freshers with open arms!

Socially, Caius is a nice place to be. Not too big, not too small (there are around 160-ish people per year), you get to know everybody quickly, especially since all first years live on the same site. Caius is known by some to have quite a party reputation, apparently featuring in the New York Times amongst other papers in 2006 because of the extent to which its freshers caused drunken mayhem in their first week. Caius bops are also well attended by those within the college, always selling out, and always having a fancy dress theme, which isn't the case at other colleges. The college bar is located within the Old Courts, and has a great atmosphere, and a wide selection of reasonably priced drinks. As of mid-2008, a bottle of wine'll cost you £4, which you can't complain about.

Official Website
Student Union website