Overview

The education reformer Emily Davis set up a women's college, the first Oxbridge women's college,  in 1869. This institution was housed in Hitchin, a town some 25 miles south-west of Cambridge. Even when the college was permitted a site in Cambridge, this was two and a half miles outside the city center, at a deliberate distance from the male students. The college went co-educational in the 70s. Its gardens and late-Victorian buildings provide the backdrop to open-air Shakespeare plays in the summer months. Famous alumni include HM Queen Margerethe of Denmark and Baroness Warnock.