New College, Oxford
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New College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by Bishop William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as New College's feeder school, New College was one of the first colleges in the university to admit and tutor undergraduate students.
The college is in the centre of Oxford, between Holywell Street and New College Lane (known for Oxford's Bridge of Sighs). Its sister college is King's College, Cambridge. The choir of New College has recorded over one hundred albums, and has won two Gramophone Awards.
History
[edit]Despite its name, New College is one of the oldest of the Oxford colleges; it was founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, as "Saint Mary College of Winchester in Oxenford", with both graduates and undergraduates.<ref name="stat">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="History">Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Sfn It became known as "New College" because there was already a college dedicated to St Mary in Oxford (Oriel College).<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Foundation
[edit]In 1379 William of Wykeham decided to found a college. He applied to King Richard II for a royal charter permitting the foundation.Template:Sfn In addition, he wrote a charter of his own, requiring his college to have a warden and seventy scholars. He purchased the necessary land in separate lots from the City of Oxford, Merton College and Queen's College. The area had been the City Ditch, a dangerous place by the city's wall; it had been used within living memory for burials during the Black Death.Template:Sfn
The college was founded the same year in conjunction with a feeder school, Winchester College (founded 1382, opened 1394).<ref name="History"/><ref name="Winchester College Heritage">Template:Cite web</ref> The two institutions have striking architectural similarities: both were the work of master mason William Wynford.<ref name="Hayter 1970">Template:Cite book</ref> The first stone was laid on 5 March 1380. The college had occupied the buildings by 14 April 1386.Template:Sfn William of Wykeham then drew up the statutes of the college.<ref name="History"/> The coat of arms of the college is William of Wykeham's. It features two black chevrons, one said to have been added when he became a bishop and the other possibly representing his skill with architecture, since the chevron was a device used by masons. Winchester College uses the same arms.Template:Sfn The college's motto, created by William of Wykeham, is "Manners Makyth Man".<ref name="History"/>
New College was established to have prayers said for William of Wykeham's soul. He instructed that there were to be ten chaplains, three clerks and a choir of 16 choristers on the foundation of the college.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
As well as being one of the first Oxford colleges to take undergraduates and to appoint tutors to teach them,Template:Sfn<ref name=VCHNew>Template:Cite book</ref> New College was the first in Oxford to be deliberately designed around a main quadrangle.<ref name=VCHNew /> The college was about as large as all of the (six) existing Oxford colleges combined.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Civil wars
[edit]The Royalists used the cloisters and bell tower to store munitions early in the English Civil War. In August 1651, the college was fortified by Parliamentarian forces. In 1685, Monmouth's rebellion involved Robert Sewster, a fellow of the college, who commanded a company of university volunteers, mostly from New College; they exercised on the bowling green.Template:Sfn
Academic
[edit]Students at New College were until 1834 exempt from taking the university's examinations for the BA and (in earlier times) the MA degrees, and were also ineligible for honours, though they still had to take the college's own tests. The college used to have a reputation for "Golden scholars, silver bachelors, leaden masters and wooden doctors."Template:Sfn More recently, like many of Oxford's colleges, New College admitted its first mixed-sex cohort in 1979, after six centuries as an institution for men only.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In 2022, students at New College scored 75.5 on the Norrington Table.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The choristers were originally accommodated within the walls of the college, under one schoolmaster. Since then the school has expanded; in 1903 the choristers moved to New College School in Savile Road.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
College links
[edit]King Henry VI is said to have established his own new colleges, King's College, Cambridge, and Eton College, either in admiration of William of Wykeham's twinned institutions of New College and Winchester College, or at least to have modified his plans to outdo them.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
New College and Winchester College have from the mid 15th century been formally linked to Eton College and King's College, Cambridge, a four-way relationship known as the Amicabilis Concordia.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Sfn King's and New College are sister colleges.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Buildings and gardens
[edit]At the time of its foundation, the college was a grand example of the "perpendicular style".<ref name="p26">Template:Harvnb</ref> With the evolution of the college over the centuries, it has regularly added to its original quadrangle. The upper storey of the quad was added in the sixteenth century as attics which, in 1674, were replaced by a third storey proper as seen today. The oval turf at the centre of the quad is an eighteenth-century addition.<ref name="p26"/> Many of its buildings are listed as being of special architectural or historical importance.Template:Efn
The initial building phase saw the construction of the Great Quad with the Gate Tower, the dining hall with the four-storeyed Muniment Tower for access, the chapel, the cloisters (consecrated as a burial site in 1400) with the four-storeyed bell tower (1400), along with the Warden's Barn in New College Lane (1402) and the Long Room (behind the SE corner of the Great Quad), purpose-built as a garderobe.Template:Sfn
The three-sided Garden Quadrangle, open at one end and begun by the addition of The Chequer to the east of the Great Quad in 1449, was completed in two stages between 1682 and 1707. Further college expansion led to the formation of Holywell Quad in the 19th century. A range known as 'New Buildings' was built along Holywell Street between 1872 and 1896, partly by George Gilbert Scott in High Victorian style (1872), and partly, including the Robinson Tower over the entrance gates, by Basil Champneys in late Victorian style (1885, 1896).Template:Sfn<ref name="Our living heritage">Template:Cite web</ref>
New College is building a new development on its Savile Road site, next to New College School. The Gradel Quadrangles were designed by David Kohn Architects and received planning permission in June 2018. They will provide an additional 99 student rooms, additional dining and kitchen space, a flexible learning hub and a performance venue.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The tower of Gradel Quadrangles features several carved animal figures, symbolizing endangered species. Additional animal carvings adorn the parapets, reflecting a shift in architectural symbolism from colonial exploration to contemporary environmental concerns.<ref name=guard>Template:Cite news</ref> Upper diamond-shaped windows allude to Melnikov House in Moscow, a seminal project of the Soviet avant garde.<ref name=guard/> In 2022, Sir Robert McAlpine was proceeding with construction.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
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Photo-chrome of Garden Quad
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Holywell Street: Scott Buildings and Robinson Tower
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The Chapel and old city wall from Holywell Quad
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Front Quad
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Gradel Quadrangles, Mansfield Road, nearing completion, March 2024
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Hall
[edit]The hall is the dining room of the college and its dimensions are eighty feet by forty feet (24 m × 12 m). In his charter, Wykeham forbade wrestling, dancing and all noisy games in the hall due to the close proximity of the college chapel and the lodgings below the hall; he further prescribed the use of Latin in conversation.<ref name="p26"/> The linenfold panelling was added while Archbishop Warham was bursar. The floor was paved with marble in 1722. By the end of the 18th century, the open oak roof had been replaced by a ceiling. When the Junior Common Room offered £1000 to restore the hall roof, work began in 1865 under the architect George Gilbert Scott to create the current roof. The plain windows were replaced with stained glass, and the portraits were relocated.<ref name="p26"/> The hall underwent a major restoration project in 2015.<ref name="Buildings">Template:Cite web</ref>
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Hall
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Chapel & cloisters
[edit]The chapel was based on the plan of Merton Chapel.Template:Sfn The transepts and tower that made Merton Chapel T-shaped were omitted, and a screen separated the main chapel from the ante-chapel. The medieval interior was modified after the Reformation, with the removal of secondary altars, the rood loft, and the reredos' statues, the reredos being covered in plaster.<ref name="Goodall 2019">Template:Cite web</ref> Much of the medieval stained glass in the ante-chapel was restored in a 20-year project which was commended in the 2007 Oxford Preservation Trust Environmental Awards.<ref name="Magnificent Seven">Template:Cite web</ref> The chapel contains a statue of Lazarus by Sir Jacob Epstein<ref name="Treasures"/><ref name="Goodall 2019"/> and a painting by El Greco.<ref name="NYT 9 May 1982"/><ref name="Treasures Gallery">Template:Cite web</ref> Some of the stained glass windows, including the Great West Window, were designed by the 18th-century portraitist Sir Joshua Reynolds.<ref name="NYT 9 May 1982">Template:Cite news</ref>
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Chapel reredos
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The Chapel, looking towards the altar
The choir stalls contain a "splendid set"<ref name="Goodall 2019"/> of 62 14th-century misericords.<ref name=VCHNew/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The niches of the reredos, which had been plastered over, were uncovered in the 1780s, and were fitted with statues by Sir Gilbert Scott in the late 19th century.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The chapel preserves the Founder's Crosier, a bishop's staff decorated with enamel and silver gilt; it resembles a crosier at Cologne Cathedral.<ref name="NYT 9 May 1982"/>Template:Sfn
The cloisters, containing a large holm oak tree, sit by the western wall of the Chapel, were featured in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, in the scene in which Draco Malfoy is turned into a white ferret.<ref name="Buildings"/> Michael Darbie recast the original five bells of the bell tower into eight in 1655, creating the first set of eight to be cast simultaneously.<ref name="OSCR"/> In 1712, two more bells were added, supposedly to outmatch Magdalen College's new ring of eight bells created in that year.<ref name="OSCR"/><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The bells are rung by the Oxford Society of Change Ringers.<ref name="OSCR">Template:Cite web</ref>
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The Cloisters, exterior
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The Cloisters, interior
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Drawing of the Cloisters and Chapel
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Gardens and city wall
[edit]The Middle Gateway opens to the Garden Quadrangle.Template:Sfn The gardens include a mound that was first arranged in 1594 (with steps added in 1649,Template:Sfn but now smooth with one set of stairs). In a 1761 edition of Pocket Companion for Oxford the mound is described:
- "In the middle of the Garden is a beautiful Mount with an easy ascent to the top of it, and the Walks around it, as well as the Summit of it, guarded with Yew Hedges. The Area before the Mount being divided into four Quarters, [..] the King's Arms, [..] opposite to it the Founder's; in the third a Sun Dial; and the Fourth, a Garden-Knot, all planted in Box, and neatly cut."
When William of Wykeham acquired the land on which to build the college, he agreed to maintain the city wall.Template:Sfn The herbaceous border that runs alongside the wall is mentioned in Historic England's listing of the garden.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
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The Gate in Garden Quad
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Old city wall in the College gardens
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The Garden Mound
Sports ground
[edit]The New College sports ground south of the University Parks was established in the 1880s.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>Template:Sfn The Weston buildings, which accommodate postgraduate students, were built next to the ground in 1999.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Treasures
[edit]The college treasures include paintings and a substantial silver collection.<ref name="Treasures">Template:Cite web</ref> The library contains a copy of the first printed edition of Aristotle.<ref name="p26"/> A Barbara Hepworth statue stands by the City Wall.<ref name="Buildings"/>
Music
[edit]Choir
[edit]
In 1379, William of Wykeham provided for a choral foundation of clerks and boy choristers.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The tradition continues today with choral services during term.<ref name="Chapel and Choir">Template:Cite web</ref> The choir often performs Renaissance and Baroque music, including Handel's works.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> As well as appearing repeatedly at the BBC Proms, the choir has made numerous concert tours.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
The choir has recorded over one hundred albums.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1997, the choir won a Gramophone Award in the best-selling disc category for their album Agnus Dei,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and in 2008, they won a Gramophone Award in the early music category for their recording of Nicholas Ludford's Missa Benedicta.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> On 29 June 2015, at the invitation of the Holy See and the Cappella Musicale Pontificia Sistina, the choir sang at the Papal Pallium mass for the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul in St. Peter's Basilica.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Organ
[edit]The original organ was given by William Porte (1420–1423).Template:Sfn An organ was removed in 1547 under Edward VI, and likewise in 1572.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> A Willis organ installed in 1874 contained parts from organs by Samuel Green in 1776, James Chapman Bishop, and Dallam in 1663.Template:Sfn
The present instrument was constructed by Grant, Degens and Bradbeer in 1969.<ref>Organ, New College Choir Template:Webarchive. Retrieved 1 May 2010</ref> In 2014 the organ was restored, with the key actions and other mechanisms being completely renewed by Goetze and Gwynn.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
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The organ, between the chapel and the ante-chapel
Student life
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Outreach
[edit]New College has launched Step-Up, a sustained contact outreach initiative which seeks to inspire students from partner schools in England and Wales to apply to Oxford and supports them to make a competitive application.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The college founded the Oxford for Wales consortium, Oxford Cymru, along with Jesus College and St Catherine's College, offering support to students from state schools in Wales.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Rowing
[edit]A New College rowing eight is recorded from 1840; the New College Boat Club was "Head of the River" in Eights Week in 1887 and several years from 1896. The club headed the Torpids competition in 1882, 1896, and 1900 to 1904.<ref name="Boat Club History">Template:Cite web</ref> The club represented Great Britain at the Summer Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1912, and earned a silver medal.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
People associated with New College
[edit]Template:Further Science
- Marc Tessier-Lavigne, Canadian-American neuroscientist who was the eleventh president of Stanford University
- Pardis Sabeti, American computational biologist, medical geneticist, and evolutionary geneticist
Politics
- Susan Rice, American diplomat, policy advisor, and public official
- Rachel Reeves, the UK's first female Chancellor of the Exchequer<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Organisation and administration
[edit]The head of the college is the warden, who is responsible for academic leadership, chairs the governing body, and represents the college. Policy is defined and actioned by the warden together with the fellows of the college,<ref name="Officers"/> who are scholars.<ref name="Fellows">Template:Cite web</ref> New College is one of the constituent self-governing colleges of the University of Oxford, which has a federal organisation.<ref name="Uni Organisation">Template:Cite web</ref> The warden is supported by specialist officers including tutors, bursar, librarian, and chaplain.<ref name="Officers">Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="BHO wardens">'New College', in A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 3: The University of Oxford (1954), pp. 144-162 online at british-history.ac.uk, accessed 26 August 2008.</ref>
The students are divided into a Middle Common Room consisting of the college's graduates, and a Junior Common Room for the undergraduates; these are run by their own committees.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Notes
[edit]References
[edit]Sources
[edit]- Buxton, John, and Penry Williams (1979). New College, Oxford, 1379–1979. Oxford: Warden and Fellows of New College. Template:ISBN.
- Halford Smith, Alic (1952). New College, Oxford, and its Buildings. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Jenkinson, Matthew (2013). New College School, Oxford: A History. Oxford: Shire. Template:ISBN.
- Template:Cite book
- Tyerman, Christopher (2010). New College. London: Third Millennium. Template:ISBN.
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External links
[edit]Template:Commons category Template:Wikisourcepar
- Pages with broken file links
- New College, Oxford
- 1379 establishments in England
- Educational institutions established in the 14th century
- Colleges of the University of Oxford
- Grade I listed buildings in Oxford
- Grade I listed educational buildings
- Organisations based in Oxford with royal patronage
- Buildings and structures of the University of Oxford