Note 43 — Chapter IV

To appreciate the greatness of this debt, we must bear in mind that, when he became Master of the College, Nevile found the ground occupied by heterogeneous ranges of old buildings, the remains of the suppressed Colleges and Hostels, running chaotically in all sorts of directions. These are shown in the earliest map of Cambridge,[43] made in 1592, just before he began his great work of pulling down, setting back, building and rebuilding. He thus remodelled almost the whole; the Chapel alone (built fifty years earlier) and the great eastern gate-tower remaining as they were before his reconstructions. In reality this Court, far more than the Cloister Court, deserves to be called by his name, and to remind us of his motto Ne vile velis ("Nothing cheap and nasty").