Places · East of England · Cambridge
Façade & building consultants in Cambridge.
From Norman churches and medieval college courts to grey-white brick terraces and new glass laboratories, Cambridge's buildings span nearly a thousand years. McKay Turner Consulting provides façade condition surveys, heritage and defect investigations, FRAEW (PAS 9980) and EWS1 assessments across the city.
CAMBRIDGE 52.2050° N, 0.1225° E
A short history
A university city, now a science city
Cambridge began as a Roman fort on Castle Hill. The university, founded in 1209, has shaped its buildings ever since, and science and technology now drive its growth.
- AD 70
A Roman fort
The Romans build a small fort on Castle Hill, later converted to civilian use.
- 1209
The university begins
Scholars leaving Oxford settle in Cambridge. Peterhouse, the oldest college, follows in 1284.
- 1448
Queens' Old Court
Walls of local clunch are given a thin skin of red brick, an early use of exposed brick in a Cambridge college.
- 1515
King's College Chapel
The chapel's shell is finished under Henry VIII, topped by John Wastell's fan vault.
- 1845
The railway arrives
The station is placed away from the centre, and Victorian streets of gault brick grow up around it in Romsey Town.
- 1951
City status
Cambridge is granted its city charter, centuries after the university made it a place of national importance.
- 1970
Cambridge Science Park
Trinity College founds the UK's oldest science park, the start of the high-tech cluster known as Silicon Fen.
- 2026
Planning for growth
Homes England and Hill buy the Cambridge East airport site for more than 10,000 homes, and the government plans a new development corporation.
Architecture
What makes Cambridge's buildings distinctive
Cambridge has no good local building stone, so builders used soft chalk called clunch and local brick, and brought in limestone for the finest work. The result is a city of pale stone colleges and grey-white brick streets.
Key styles
Saxon & Norman
St Bene't's (early 11th century) is the city's oldest building. The Round Church and the Leper Chapel used Barnack stone.
Medieval & Tudor colleges
Courts built around quadrangles, often with clunch walls faced in brick, as at Queens' and St John's.
Classical
Ketton stone at Clare, Emmanuel and Trinity Library, then Portland stone at the Senate House (1722).
Georgian & Victorian brick
Pale gault brick became the fashion. Nearly all 19th-century houses in the town were built in it.
Modernism
James Stirling's glass-fronted History Faculty (1968), now Grade II*, and new colleges such as Robinson (1977).
Contemporary
Accordia, the first housing scheme to win the Stirling Prize (2008), the Eddington district and glass-fronted lab buildings.
The city's material palette
Did you know?
King's College Chapel has the world's largest fan vault, built by John Wastell between 1512 and 1515.
Queens' Old Court looks like solid brick, but its walls are clunch with a thin brick skin. Local clay fires white, so no one knows where the red brick came from.
A Privy Council order of 1619 required new houses in the old town to be roofed with slate or tile instead of thatch.
Typical building types
What Cambridge is built of today
The university, a major hospital campus and a fast-growing science economy shape Cambridge's buildings, alongside dense Victorian streets and new neighbourhoods on the city's edge.
Colleges & chapels
Listed courts, halls and chapels in stone and brick that need specialist care.
Where: King's Parade, Trinity Street, Trumpington Street
University faculties
Teaching and research buildings from the Victorian era to the present day.
Where: Sidgwick Site, Downing Site, West Cambridge
Labs & life science
Purpose-built laboratories with heavily serviced, glazed and clad façades.
Where: Biomedical Campus, Cambridge Science Park, St John's Innovation Park
Offices & tech
Modern office buildings for tech and professional firms near the stations.
Where: Station Road, Hills Road, Cambridge North
Hospitals & healthcare
Large hospital buildings, many extended and re-clad over several decades.
Where: Addenbrooke's, Biomedical Campus, Hills Road
Victorian terraces
Gault brick terraces and villas, now often extended or split into flats.
Where: Mill Road, Romsey, Chesterton
New neighbourhoods
Large new districts of apartments, houses and student and key worker homes.
Where: Eddington, Trumpington, Accordia
Retail & mixed use
Shops and cafés at street level, often in historic buildings with homes above.
Where: Grand Arcade, Lion Yard, Market Square
Current construction trends
Where Cambridge is building now
Cambridge is planning for major growth in homes and laboratories, while caring for a large stock of historic and post-war buildings.
Cambridge East
Homes England and Hill bought the 700-acre airport site in June 2026 for more than 10,000 homes and around 9,000 jobs. Marshall is due to relocate by mid-2029.
Cambridge Biomedical Campus
Prologis has topped out 2000 Discovery Drive, with lab-enabled space due to complete in late 2026, as part of £3bn investment plans for the campus.
Cambridge Science Park
Trinity College has submitted plans to triple the park's capacity, with more than 20,000 skilled jobs expected over 30 years.
Local Plan and development corporation
The draft Greater Cambridge Local Plan says about 50,000 new homes are needed by 2045. The government also plans a development corporation to speed up delivery.
New neighbourhoods
Eddington, in north west Cambridge, is planned for up to 3,000 homes and 2,000 student rooms. Its first residents moved in in 2017 and later phases are still to come.
Building safety and retrofit
Apartment and student blocks are being assessed under PAS 9980 and the Building Safety Act. Older buildings, such as the leaky History Faculty, are getting new glazing.
How we help in Cambridge
Every era of building has its own risks
We match our inspections and advice to the age and construction of your building.
Georgian, Victorian & Edwardian stone, brick and terracottac.1750–1930
Weathered stone, failed pointing and mortar, corroding iron fixings and water ingress through older details.
Post-war concrete and system buildsc.1950–1990
Spalling concrete, corroded reinforcement, ageing windows and poor thermal performance.
Curtain walls, rainscreen and high-rise residentialc.1990–2018
Leaking seals and gaskets, combustible cladding and insulation, and missing cavity barriers.
New build and conversionstoday
Design and specification gaps, workmanship defects and Building Safety Act requirements.
The Northcliffe, City of London: a stone condition assessment of a 1925 cast-stone office, with a prioritised repair, cleaning and maintenance plan.
Read the case study →FAQs
Façade services in Cambridge
Can you survey listed college and heritage buildings in Cambridge?
Yes. We inspect clunch, limestone, brick and slate, and recommend repairs that suit the building's age, construction and listed status.
How quickly can you respond to an enquiry in Cambridge?
We work across Cambridge and Cambridgeshire. We aim to respond to new enquiries within one working day, and we arrange site visits and access to suit your programme.
Do you carry out FRAEWs and EWS1 forms in Cambridge?
Yes. We carry out Fire Risk Appraisals of External Walls to PAS 9980 and EWS1 assessments on apartment, student and mixed-use buildings across Cambridge and Cambridgeshire. We are Homes England approved Cladding Safety Scheme assessors.
Which other services do you offer in Cambridge?
Technical due diligence for offices and labs, defect and water ingress investigations, thermographic surveys, specification and tender, development monitoring, remediation project management and expert witness services.
Work with us
Own or manage a building in Cambridge?
We provide façade condition surveys, defect investigations, PAS 9980 appraisals and EWS1 assessments, and manage remediation across Cambridge and the East of England.
Photographs: Tim Alex and Karen Cann on Unsplash.