About the College
There are a number of helpful sources of information available when choosing a Cambridge College for postgraduate study; guidance on the University website and on individual college sites can help make the process easier. All postgraduate applicants can indicate a preferred College on their application, or leave their preference “open” if they wish. Churchill College offers a friendly, collaborative and multidisciplinary community for postgraduates with excellent facilities and student support – you can find out more about the College on these pages. There is guidance on applying on the application process page.
Churchill College is unique in having a large parkland site of 42 acres (see the 360° panorama of the central lawn and the back fields). We are adjacent to a number of major academic departments and research centres, and half a mile from the University Library and the historic city centre.
The College’s original buildings are the first Modernist scheme implemented in Cambridge; they reflect a coherent and distinctive architectural style that is emblematic of the vision and ambition of the College’s origins, and incorporate window bays jutting over lawns and gardens in almost every part of the campus. The dining hall and Buttery (the College’s café/bar) can be seen on the panorama pages. Artworks from the College’s remarkable collection of paintings and sculptures include work by Andy Warhol, Barbara Hepworth, Dhruva Mistry, Peter Lanyon, and others.
The College is on the “Universal” bus route providing a regular, subsidised and sustainable (fully electric) bus service to almost every part of the University. A lively College boat club has a modern boathouse, and we are the nearest College to the University Sports Centre – though we have sports fields, and other facilities including squash courts and a gym, as well as a dance studio and a music centre with a recording studio and recital spaces, on our own site. There is more information about the wider facilities on these pages.
Churchill College was established in the aftermath of the Second World War with a vision to invigorate and expand research and study in Science and Technology with creativity and innovation. That core purpose continues to the present day, and extends into the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences which make up about a third of the academic community in the College. The first 25 students, who arrived in 1960, were all postgraduates, reflecting from the outset the centrality of research and higher study at the College – and today postgraduates make up about half the student membership. That first cohort included students from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, the Netherlands, Nigeria and the United Kingdom, and we continue to attract a richly diverse international community of outstanding postgraduates who continue the College’s multidisciplinary and innovative academic mission.
We are proud of the College’s friendly community of creative and thoughtful scholars, at undergraduate, postgraduate and senior level, and we welcome interest from innovative and creative applicants looking for a distinctive and multidisciplinary home when they are choosing a Cambridge college for postgraduate study.