Pembroke has a long and distinguished history. Its poets and politicians, its mathematics and its music, have won the College a reputation for various distinctions. Pembroke is also well known for relaxed but disciplined achievement, in academic life and beyond. Pembroke today is committed to building on those traditions of diversity in excellence.
The College site, a quiet and welcoming series of open courts built around beautiful gardens, is an important part of this story. A tour might include the Old Library, parts of which date from the fourteenth century, and Christopher Wren's baroque chapel. Foundress Court, completed in 1997 to mark the College's 650th Anniversary, provides a new Master's Lodge and modern accommodation for ninety undergraduates. Alfred Waterhouse's Victorian Library has recently undergone imaginative renovation and expansion, to meet the needs of a new century.