Clare Hall, Cambridge: the fourteenth to seventeenth-century college

Archaeological investigations at Clare College, Cambridge, between 2014 and 2021 allow a much greater understanding of the fourteenth to seventeenth-century college than has previously been possible. The extent and layout of the later Medieval quadrangle can be reconstructed with some accuracy. The western range was probably not constructed until the mid-fifteenth century and was c. 9.7 m wide (8.5 m internally). The ground floor was c. 0.4 m lower than the ground surface in the central court, and c. 0.2 m higher than the ground to the west. The western range incorporated considerable quantities of brick and the floor of the Master’s Lodge was supported by posts on stone pads. The ground was remodelled in the early/mid-seventeenth century, around the time the modern college buildings began to be constructed, with brick floors and plastered walls, and went out of use in the late seventeenth century. While the development of Clare College is usually thought of as two phases, of later Medieval buildings that were replaced by Early Modern structures, there was effectively an intermediate period that was a mixture of the two that existed in several stages over a 130 year period, between 1638 and 1769.