Friars & Dokett Buildings Friars & Dokett Buildings
The College experienced a growth in student numbers during the 19th century, bringing with it the need for additional student accommodation. The President's second garden (now called Friars' Court) was taken as the site for a new building in 1886, to the design of W.M. Fawcett, architect, and built by Rattee & Kett. As originally constructed, Friars' Building had four staircases (M,N,O,P) each of four floors, each floor having two sets, making 32 sets in all. In the early 1950s, the ground, first, and second floors were altered: each set was subdivided into two bedsits, so as to increase the capacity of the building. In 1980, one bedsit on each staircase was converted to showers & baths, to the design of Julian Bland, architect. The building now accommodates 52 students and Fellows.
Friars' Building was built in the neo-Gothic style, using red brick and stone relief, and was intended to reflect the style of the 1448 buidings of Old Court, which at that time it faced, before the new Chapel was built inbetween.
The court and building are called Friars' because they are on the site of a former Carmelite monastery, one of the monasteries suppressed by King Henry VIII. Queens' acquired this land in 1544 (from the President Dr Mey who had bought it in 1541), and by 1545 made it into a second garden for the President. It connected to his first garden by a curious little yard with four doors, which permitted the President to pass diagonally between his two gardens, and the Fellows to pass diagonally between Walnut Tree Court and their garden, without either trespassing on each other's territory. For the President was not a Fellow, and could not enter the Fellows' Garden, and the Fellows could not enter either of the President's Gardens.
The north wall of the former chapel of the Carmelite monastery forms part of the boundary wall between Queens' and King's Colleges. On the Queens' side, it is largely hidden by workshops. It is entirely possible that this wall is the oldest building in College. The Carmelites buried their dead in and around their chapel, and human remains were discovered during the erection of Friars', Dokett and Erasmus buildings.
When the first President Andrew Dokett died in 1484, he stipulated that the College was to maintain his almshouses, in which poor women resided. The almshouses were then in Small Bridges Street (now Silver Street), on part of the present site of the Master's Lodge of St Catharine's College. In 1836, Queens' sold this site (comprising the former University Press, former Anatomy School, and Dokett's almshouses) to St Catharine's College. Eight new replacement almshouses were built in 1836 at the north end of Queens' Lane, backing on to the President's second garden. In 1907, the northmost almshouse was sold to King's College and demolished. In 1911, the remaining seven almshouses were demolished to make way for a new College building, and the obligation to Dokett's will was converted to a pension charity.
Dokett Building was built in 1912 to the design of Cecil G. Hare, architect, who had earlier been a partner of G.F. Bodley (responsible for the new Chapel and decoration of the Old Hall). The contractor was Rattee & Kett. The building is of thin red Daneshill brick with Corsham stone dressings and mullioned windows. The internal oakwork was a benefaction of the President, Dr Fitzpatrick. There are three staircases (Q,R,S). Dokett originally provided 26 sets (living room facing the court, bedroom facing Queens' Lane) and a Bursary office. Over the years, most of the sets have been converted into two bedsits.
Dokett Building was notable for two things: it was the first building in College (and surely one of the earliest in Cambridge) to have floor slabs made of reinforced concrete. But it also included a much more radical innovation: the first bathrooms in College, and the first building to be built with inside toilets.
[Ancient joke: Old don, on hearing that students were demanding bathrooms in college: "Baths? What do they want baths for? They're only here for eight weeks!"].
Alas, public taste was not ready for toilets and bathrooms on the staircases, and these shocking new facilities were consigned to the basement.