About Downing College

Downing College, Cambridge

Downing College is a unique academic community: diverse, close-knit and committed. The College's purpose is to provide a world-class education to the students with the most potential in each subject, whatever their means or social background.  We are a diverse and welcoming scholarly community. 

Our College’s beautiful neo-classical buildings are set among spacious and peaceful gardens in the heart of Cambridge city centre, close to many University faculties and departments. Founded in 1800, through a bequest made by Sir George Downing 3rd Baronet, the Downing College Charter granted a perpetual college for students in ‘Law, physic and the other useful arts and learning’.  Known as the 'newest of the old and oldest of the new', the College was the 17th to be founded within the University of Cambridge, after a gap of 204 years, and some 69 years before the founding of Girton College.