Pollard was retained to redevelop the building as an education institute, and to undertake complete reconstruction after a disastrous fire in 1885.

In 2014 the last of the teaching departments moved out, at which point the university began planning, and fundraising, for a redevelopment of the whole Old College site and its transformation into a heritage/cultural and learning centre.

Savin hired John Pollard Seddon to undertake the reconstruction and work progressed at speed, with the Castle Hotel opening in 1865.

[1] The mosaics were controversial; Vosey's original conception included religious imagery which he intended to symbolise "Science tearing down Sacerdotalism".

[4] Some of the university staff were enraged, one don suggesting; "the only blot to spoil the picture being the unfortunate mosaic" and Seddon, who had personally paid for it, was obliged to pressure Vosey to amend the design.

Cadw's listing record notes it as a "...particularly important example of that style so loved by wealthy Victorian patrons and so imaginatively created by architects of the period".