Pembroke College was founded in 1347 by Mary de St Pol, the widow of Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke.  In 1360, she sought permission from the Pope to build a college chapel – the first in Cambridge.  The original chapel is still there – it is now a library – but the current chapel is the first completed building designed by Christopher Wren.  It includes some notable features, not least an exquisite 15th century alabaster representation of the Virgin Mary and the Archangel Michael depicting the judgement of a soul.  Next to the chapel is a cloister where memorials commemorate the 450 Pembroke men who fell in the wars of 1914-18 and 1939-45.  Around a third of the young men who joined the college between 1911 and 1917 were dead by 1919.

Notable alumni include William Pitt the Younger, Peter Cook, Eric Idle, Clive James, Bill Oddie, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Roger Bushell, Naomie Harris, Robert Macfarlane and Jo Cox.

Sidney Sussex College was founded on St. Valentine's Day in 1596 by legacy of Lady Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex.  It is built on the site of a Franciscan friary and has a reputation as a Protestant college; arguably, it’s most famous old boy is Oliver Cromwell, whose skull is buried in the college ante-chapel – where his ghost is said to hang around. The main buildings of the College were built in the closing years of the 16th century, with additions in the 17th.  The Chapel dates from 1780 and there were considerable changes in the 19th century.  The college has an impressive art collection and a particular reputation for mathematics, history, engineering and law.  Apart from Lord Protector Cromwell, notable alumni include David (Lord) Owen, David Lidington, several Bletchley Park codebreakers, including the historian Asa Briggs, the journalist Andrew Rawnsley and TV personality Carol Vorderman.

Middle Temple is one of the four Inns of Court which have the exclusive right to call students to the Bar. The education and training of advocates lies at the heart of the Inn, but it is also a professional society with a worldwide membership. The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, to give it its full name, is based on the site of the headquarters of the medieval Knights Templar. Though very little survives from this period - and the area was also extensively bombed in the 1940s - walking through Middle Temple is like walking through history, with links to Magna Carta and the exploration of the New World. Visits inside the Elizabethan Great Hall can be arranged in advance - most of the buildings contain barristers' chambers. Middle Temple is also responsible, with the Inner Temple, for the historic Temple Church.

Christ Church College, Oxford, was founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII. But this was originally going to be Thomas Wolsey’s Cardinal College. In 1525, when Lord Chancellor of England and Archbishop of York, Wolsey suppressed the Priory of St Frideswide in Oxford and founded Cardinal College on its lands. Frideswide was a Saxon princess and healer who became the Patron Saint of Oxford; her shrine is still in Christ Church Cathedral (see separate entry) today. Anyway, Wolsey fell from grace and died, and the college was instead founded by Henry as Christ Church.

Christ Church is a large college, packed with history, and has several significant features – not least the Cathedral of Christ Church which is part of it (though has a separate entry on A Bit About Britain). Tom Tower was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, Tom Quad is the largest quadrangle in Oxford and the Great Dining Hall was the seat of the parliament assembled by King Charles I during the English Civil War. Several parts of the college have featured in films, including Harry Potter and The Golden Compass. The stairs leading to the Hall will be familiar as the place where Professor Minerva McGonagall greeted the new students.

Among Christ Church notable alumni are (allegedly) thirteen British prime ministers (more than any other Oxbridge college), including Robert Peel, WE Gladstone, Anthony Eden and Alec Douglas-Home, as well as (in no particular order) King Edward VII, William Penn, Lewis Carroll, CS Lewis, WH Auden, Richard Curtis, John Ruskin, Hugh Trevor-Roper and David Dimbleby.

Christ Church College is extremely popular with tourists. Its sister college in the University of Cambridge is Trinity College, also founded in 1546 by Henry VIII. See separate entry.

Merton College claims to have been the first fully self-governing College in the University and founded in 1264 by Walter de Merton, sometime Chancellor of England and later Bishop of Rochester. Mob Quadrangle is the oldest quadrangle in the University and dates from c1288-91.  Mob Library, built 1373-8, is the oldest continuously-functioning library for university academics and students in the world. The Gatehouse dates from the early fifteenth century, when Henry V granted a royal licence to crenellate, which allowed for the construction of the battlement tower above the present-day Lodge.  Merton Chapel dates from the late 1280s; the transepts were added in the 14th and early 15th centuries and the tower was completed in 1450. The lectern dates from 1504 and a screen by Christopher Wren was added in 1673.  Notable alumni include JRR Tolkien, TS Eliot, Naruhito, Emperor of Japan, William Harvey and Sir Thomas Bodley (who established the Bodleian Library in 1602).