The Garden Quadrangle and other green spaces. Click on images to enlarge them.
The fortunes of the college revived after the Restoration; the chapel was restored, the Baylie Chapel erected and the Fellows' Common Room, the first of its kind in Oxford, built there almost within living memory the fellows were wont to toast the “King over the water.” It has a curious ceiling of Italian shell-work .
Left: The Chapel Interior. Right: The Shell Ceiling.
The hall underwent a thorough transformation in the times of the Georges. It contains portraits of Sir Thomas White, Archbishops Laud and Juxon, Sir Walter Raleigh, etc . The chapel was restored about the same time and redecorated in 1872. The services at 9.15 and 6 on Sunday and 8 and 5 (6 in summer) on weekdays are open to visitors. In the Canterbury quad are bronze statues of Charles I. and Henrietta Maria. Among the treasures of the library are a curious portrait of Charles I. over which some psalms have been written in a microscopic hand; the skull-cap worn by Archbishop Laud at his execution, his cope, walking stick, diaries, etc ., also a copy of Caxton' s Chaucer and the first prayer-book of Edward VI.
The Garden Front, the wall separating of Canterbury Quadrangle from the large park, which Muirhead states was “laid out by Capability Brown” (223).
A passage with a ceiling of fan tracery leads from the Canterbury quad into the beautiful gardens which are open free to the public. Turning to the left as we leave St John's we come into “The Broad” (Broad Street) and see on our left Balliol College .
Links to Related Material
Click on images to enlarge them. Photographs, 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
Great Britain. Ed. Findlay Muirhead. “The Blue Guides.” London: Macmillan, 1930.
Lang, Elsie M. The Oxford Colleges. London: T. Werner. HathiTrust online version of a copy in the University of Michigan Library. Web. 8 November 2022.
Last modified 8 November 2022