h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've been thinking about doing this one for a while. It's certainly got some history worth talking about since it was the first Cambridge College for women (though it's mixed now). It's also unusual in not being right in the middle of the city.

The only thing I remember about Girton is that we (Emmanuel) once won a table-tennis match against them by default, as the opposing team failed to turn up. This would have been unremarkable, except that Girton were the home team and we'd walked 3 miles to get to the match

That's probably not much use for an Entry on the college, though..!

Great - thanks Aurora!

Some more bits:

The first residential college for women in England - founded in 1869 by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon, as the first residential college for women in England.

Mixed since 1977.

Is it true that gowns aren't worn during the college feast, in order to remember when women weren't allowed to obtain degrees?

University website: http://www.girton.cam.ac.uk/

Famous alumni (apart from Sandi Toksvig!): Novelist Wendy Holden, Queen Margarethe II of Denmark.

We had the college feast last night! It's true about the gowns. Thinking about it, Cambridge only started awarding degrees to women in 1948. That means for most of its history, Girton students were not allowed to graduate.

Hello there Aurora! At Newnham we have the college feast at the beginning of Michaelmas Term - and we *do* wear gowns.

Nice to meet another Cambridge person in hootoo - although you'll see from my conversation with the italics that I'm on the admin side of the desk!