It was founded by Bishop Samuel Tarratt Nevill as a theological college training clergy for the Anglican Church and as a hall of residence for students attending the university.

[2] Bishop Nevill was the pioneer of the Oxbridge-esque collegiate system at Otago and founded Selwyn college in 1893.

A number of social events populate the student calendar, notably Selwyn's own O-Week and ReO schedules.

[8] It reflects the arrival in New Zealand of the influence of the Oxford Movement and The Ecclesiological Society, developments in thought about the Gothic revival epitomised by the work of William Butterfield (1814–1900).

The latter's slate roof has been replaced with decramastic tiles and its east and south walls have been rendered in cement which rather spoils its appearance and reduces its complementarity with the principal college buildings.

[9] Burnside also designed Transit House, a blue stone mansion in Park Street and the oldest part of the Otago Settlers Museum.

He seems to have anticipated its later extrapolation into the full range with the central archway and two towers, the arch centred on the unusual, gabled chancel of All Saints'.

In red brick in the Domestic Tudor Gothic style it uses the same manner employed at Selwyn College, Cambridge which is perhaps not an accident.

[10][11] While modest by comparison, especially this first small portion of the later, larger range, the Castle Street building was a pleasing exercise in the manner and capable of expansion into a more impressive composition.

Adding a third floor to Burnside's structure it formed the arch with its towers and its oriel window and extended in two reaches to the south, the further slightly set back from the street.

[12] There was a dining room on the ground floor with a bay window looking into the quadrangle with good stone lattice work and the interior decorated in period style.

Sargood Hall, named after a major benefactor, extends at right angles from the southern reach of the Castle Street range to form the south flank of the interior quadrangle.

This too is in red brick in the Domestic Tudor style which by this time, after the second world war, represented a bold and expensive decision in New Zealand.

Its principal, north face has a central break front with a pleasingly modelled entrance and the Hall's name in raised relief in a stone fascia above.

When the College Board next determined to extend the complex, in 1966, it again wished to build "on traditional lines", that is in period style.

It decided instead to build three separate three storeyed residential blocks and commissioned one from Miller, White and Dunn, a Dunedin architectural practice.

In 1993 the archway of the Castle Street range was shut off for security reasons with a large glass wall incorporating a door of the same material.