Buildings of Jesus College, Oxford

[14][15] The college paid a quit-rent for the land upon which White Hall stood to Christ Church, Oxford, which had acquired the assets of St Frideswide's Priory.

[15][27] Powell raised money from donors in Oxford, London, and Wales, collecting £838 12s 2d[n 2] in what has been described as "an elaborate fundraising scheme",[28] with efforts to attract donations from old members of the college.

A new doorway replaced the previous Elizabethan one, and the front of the college was remodelled in the Palladian style – oblong sash windows were inserted at all levels and the original gables on the Turl Street side of the building were removed.

But, with due Submission, I am of Opinion, that the contiguous Eastern Window of the Chapel, which is still absurdly suffered to remain with its antique Mullions and Ramifications, is by no means of a piece with the rest.

[45] Peter Howell, a writer on Victorian architecture, referred to Buckler's work as "[providing] Jesus with an attractive new front which represents the beau idéal of an Oxford college".

[2] He noted the part-Elizabethan and part-Jacobean architecture on the south side, where Price's building stops – the join between the two, he pointed out, is "easily visible" in Market Street.

[61] Similarly, the artist and art historian Aymer Vallance, writing in 1908, said that Gothic architecture, though "ailing and doomed", "lingered longest" at Oxford University, adding that the chapel windows of Jesus and Wadham were "almost as astonishing for their period" as the "magnificent" 1640 fan-vaulted entrance to the hall of Christ Church, Oxford, built nearly three hundred years after fan vaulting had been used in the cloisters of Gloucester Cathedral.

[62] The only examples of classical style in Oxford before the Civil War were Archbishop Laud's Canterbury Quad at St John's and a few gateways such as those at the Botanic Garden by Nicholas Stone; Cambridge had even less.

[63] The chapel has not been universally appreciated, however: the antiquarian and archivist Rowley Lascelles wrote in 1821 that "excepting that it was built by private contributions from the gentry of Wales, it would be cruel to say any thing about it".

[20] A London merchant, Lewis Roberts, gave "some hundreds of white and black marble stones ... towards ye paving of the upper part of the chapel", according to Francis Mansell in his inventory of 1648.

[20] The use of the rose and thistle (national emblems of England and Scotland respectively) in this way dates the porch to the reign of King James I, who used these flowers, halved, as his badge after his accession to the English throne in 1603.

[10] In 1853, Henry Foulkes (principal 1817–1857), the fellows of the college and the incumbents of most of the livings within its gift donated £350 10s for stained glass by George Hedgeland to be added to the east window; the final cost was £399.

[n 12] It shows various biblical episodes, including three instances of Christ raising people from the dead: the daughter of Jairus, the son of the widow of Nain, and Lazarus.

The original Jacobean woodwork was removed, with the exception of the screen donated by Edwards and the pulpit, new seats were installed and new paving was placed in the main part of the chapel.

[68] William Stride, writing at about the same time as Hardy, said that the "beautiful" Jacobean interior of the chapel had been "destroyed", and Oxford had "narrowly escaped other irreparable losses".

[73] Betjeman, however, was heard when showing a group around the college to describe the altar as "delicious";[73] he also wrote that the chapel's "fine classic screen" had "somehow survived a fearful 'restoration'".

[82] Casson, although referring to the chapel and other parts of the college from the Victorian era as "mostly pretty dull", thought that the "sturdy pews with their flatly modelled leafy finials hold their own".

[31] Sir Eubule Thelwall, principal from 1621 to 1630, built the lodgings at his own expense, to include (in the words of the antiquarian Anthony Wood) "a very fair dining-room adorned with wainscot curiously engraven".

Ball courts, bowling greens and groves were often added within the precincts of colleges during the 17th century so that undergraduates could amuse themselves under the watchful eyes of their tutors, rather than indulge in forbidden pursuits such as drinking in alehouses.

[113] According to his successor and biographer, Sir Leoline Jenkins, Mansell had sufficient benefactors to be able to complete the quadrangle, including the construction of a library on the west side, but the outbreak of the English Civil War in 1641 put paid to his plans.

[114] Overall, the college was "reduced ... to administrative chaos"[115] and in 1660 it was said to be in a "shatter'd condition",[116] having suffered "a decade of corruption and internal strife quite unique in Oxford during the revolutionary period".

[121][122][123][124] Pevsner described the second quadrangle as "a uniform composition", noting the "regular fenestration by windows with round-arched lights, their hood-moulds forming a continuous frieze".

[91] Norwich described the second quadrangle as having "a strong feeling of unity owing to the somewhat relentless succession of ogival gables", adding that "One is grateful for the projecting bay, oriel, chimneybreast and clock on the east side for breaking the monotony".

[94] The writer Simon Jenkins said that the quadrangle has "the familiar Oxford Tudor windows and decorative Dutch gables, crowding the skyline like Welsh dragons' teeth and lightened by exuberant flower boxes".

[128] What is now called the Fellows' Library, on the west side of the second quadrangle, dates from 1679; it was built by Sir Leoline Jenkins (appointed principal in 1661), one of the project's donors.

[111] After a long delay in building work caused by the effects of the civil war, the college purchased three properties on Market Street adjoining Coggan's Garden in 1675, and development of the south-west corner of the second quadrangle took place between 1676 and 1678 at a cost of £1,439 14s 13d.

[126] Betjeman wrote in 1938 that "The woodwork, the brown leather of the books, the clear windows and the slim height of the room make it one of the best little-known sights of Oxford".

The roof was leaking, the floorboards had been affected by dry rot and death watch beetle, and new heating and ultra-violet light controls were needed to help preserve the books.

[136][137] The long but narrow third quadrangle adjoins Ship Street, on the north of the site and to the west of the garden of the principal's lodgings, where the college has owned some land since its foundation.

[158] Former college archivist, Brigid Allen, has described it as "a kind of gated tunnel between high buildings, paved, scattered with seats and tables, and filled with gloomy foliage of the purple-leaved plum".

A square grass lawn surrounded on three sides by joined buildings; to the left and centre, three storeys with windows positioned to form a regular pattern, topped at roof level above each window by curved gablets; on the right, two bay windows (one large, one medium) project from the wall, with the same design of curved gablets.
The second quadrangle (built c. 1640–c.1712) of Jesus College , with the large bay window of the hall on the right
A map of two adjoining quadrangles of buildings (on an island to the north of Market Street, to the west of Turl Street, to the east of Cornmarket Street and to the south of Ship Street). The first quadrangle, on the right, includes the Principal's lodgings and the chapel; the hall is between the quadrangles, and the second quadrangle includes the Fellows' Library; to the north of the second quadrangle, a third area, long and thin, includes rooms such as the Junior Common Room and the Old Members' Building
Plan, with college buildings on the main site highlighted:
  • A : First quadrangle
  • B : Second quadrangle
  • C : Third quadrangle
  • D : Junior common room
  • E : Habakkuk room
  • F : Old members' building
  • G : Fellows' garden
  • H : Fellows' library
  • J : Hall
  • K : Principal's lodgings
  • L : Chapel
  • M : Principal's garden
A stone archway, without a door; above, the Roman numerals "VI" in a white circle and, in chalk, two crossed rowing oars with green blades and the words "Blades", "2001", "Men's 1st Torpid"; to the left, "Balliol SEH Keble Merton"; to the right, a standing dragon holding a flag above the initials "JCBC"
The entrance to Staircase VI, in the second quadrangle; the graffiti celebrates the success of the college boat club in Torpids , the spring inter-college races.
An elderly man in black robes and cap; the picture is in a decorated gold frame.
The portrait of Hugh Price , college founder, in the hall
A bird's-eye view of a city, showing a city wall, churches, colleges, other buildings and gardens
Part of Ralph Agas 's map of Oxford (1578) (south at the top), with the college (highlighted) near the city wall
A bird's-eye illustrated view of a college, with a quadrangle of buildings in front and an incomplete quadrangle behind. There are gardens to the right of the buildings.
An engraving from 1675 by David Loggan , showing the Turl Street face of the college, with the chapel on the right adjoining the gardens of the Principal's lodgings
A three-storey house adjoining a chapel, both in stone and with battlements
The principal's lodgings (left, 1620s) and the chapel (right, completed 1621), with the original chapel entrance, now blocked, to the right of the door
A three-storey building with regularly positioned windows, chimneys and an elaborated decorated entrance, adjoining a building with a large Gothic window, with a street in front on which there are people walking, and horses and carriages. There is a church spire in the distance.
Pardo's alterations are shown in this 1837 engraving.
A three-storey building, topped by a tower, and many bicycles leaning against the wall
The Turl Street exterior of the college, refaced in Bath stone in 1856, with the 1636 chapel window at the far right
Part of a stone doorway. The top is triangular, with the heads of two cherubs in the panel beneath. On the curved arch immediately above the entrance, the words "Ascendat oratio descendat Gratia"; a rose and a thistle on the adjoining panels
The tympanum above the entrance to the chapel
A night scene of a stained glass window lit from inside
George Hedgeland 's stained glass (1853) seen from Turl Street
A marble reredos beneath a stained glass window, with three scenes from the Crucifixion; a granite altar with six pillars
The reredos (1864)
An organ with gilded pipes on top of a decorated wooden screen, with two rows of wooden benches on either side of an aisle
The interior of the chapel facing west; the 1994 organ by William Drake stands on top of the 1693 screen added to the chapel by Jonathan Edwards .
A large decorated shell-like stone canopy, with a shield in the centre and carved foliage around; a cherub's head underneath the hood
The shell-hood (added c.1700) above the front door of the lodgings
A large stone archway at the junction of two streets, with two bicycles leaning against a street sign
The gateway on the corner of Turl Street and Ship Street (1826)
A wood-panelled hall, with a large portrait of Elizabeth I in the middle of the far wall; other portraits alongside and around the walls; a white plaster ceiling with light blue decoration
The hall, built c.1613–c.1621 with the plaster roof added c.1741
A regular pattern of windows and gables on two sides of a quadrangle of buildings; the matching shadows of the gables on the wall behind the photographer are visible on the snow
The corner of the north and west sides of the second quadrangle, with snow covering the grass
A bird's-eye view of two joined quadrangles of buildings, the left quadrangle being slightly larger than the right; the buildings on the far left extend beyond the adjoining range slightly, terminating in a large Gothic window; regularly positioned smaller windows and gables throughout both quadrangles
A view of the college from the south by George Vertue (1740), with the completed second quadrangle on the left and the first quadrangle on the right; the window in the bottom left corner is the south window of the Fellows' Library.
A library interior
The interior of the library in 2010
An imposing stone tower with an oriel window below it
The tower over the Ship Street entrance (1907)
Four windows from a two-storey stone building projecting in a V-shape
Part of the Old Members' Building (opened in 1971)
A cricket match in progress, with players in their cricket whites; behind, two modern brick building, three storeys high with dormer windows in the roof; alongside the houses, a hedge running along the side of the pitch, reaching to about the second storey of the houses
A cricket match in progress at the sports ground, with the two blocks of Hugh Price House in the background
A narrow road, pavements either side; on the left, a stone wall; on the right, a row of terraced three-storey houses, the upper storeys overhanging the ground floor
Houses on Ship Street