Cambridge Medical School building

The building for the Cambridge Medical School of the University of Cambridge was designed in 1899 by Edward Schroeder Prior. Now the Zoological Laboratory, it is a Grade II listed building. The Medical School building is Prior's largest work. Two of Prior's former clients, Dr Allbutt and the Rev. J. B. Lock, were on the committee that appointed the architect. Prior received an honorarium of only 100 guineas for the plans and elevations. He chose to adopt a classical idiom partly as a result of pressure from the committee. The committee also influenced the design in other ways, such as insisting on a stone façade. In style, the building is based on English Baroque, heavily influenced by recent buildings by architects such as Belcher, Pite and Blomfield. It also reflects the presence of J. J. Stevenson's Chemical Laboratories (1886-8), immediately to the west of the site. The Department of Zoology moved in 1933 into the redeveloped building. The architect was John Murray Easton. The former Humphry Museum was entirely reconstructed within, and today houses the Balfour and Newton Libraries.