The College viewed from Radcliffe Square

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Brasenose College, Oxford. The side of the college facing Radcliffe Square with the main entrance. The wall of the circular Radcliffe Camera appears at the extreme right of the photograph.

On only one feature of the early college was no expense apparently spared. The gate lodge and tower, overlooking the jumbled buildings of School Street, must originally have appeared striking in scale and profuse in ornament. Above the gateway was a grand dining room; above that a vaulted apartment; and above that the treasury: home to the college chest, triple locked and shod in iron. Three hundred years later [in Pugin's Specimens of Gothic Architecture (1823)] the tower's decorations— mullions and mouldings, panelling and battlements—would be admired as prototypes for the Gothic Revival. On either side of the tower were situated the better rooms in college, in particular those assigned to the Principal. [Crook 18]

Brasenose College seen from the opposite side of the Radcliffe Camera. All Soul's College is behind the viewer, and the High Street and St. Mary's Church are out of sight at the viewer's left. Part of the Radcliffe Camera appears on the left side of the photograph.

Other images of Brasenose College, Oxford

Photograph, formatting, and text by George P. Landow. [You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Bibliography

Crook, Joseph Mordaunt. Brasenose: The Biography of an Oxford College. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. [review by George P. Landow]


Last modified 1 October 2012