Brasenose College, Oxford - Location and Buildings

Location and Buildings

Brasenose faces the west side of Radcliffe Square opposite the Radcliffe Camera in the centre of Oxford. The north side is defined by Brasenose Lane, while the south side reaches the High Street. To the west is Lincoln College. At its south-east end, the college is separated from the University Church by St Mary's Passage. The main entrance of the College can be found on Radcliffe Square. Although not located on Turl Street the college has links with the three Turl Street colleges (Lincoln, Jesus, and Exeter).The College is also physically linked to Lincoln College through a connecting door, which Brasenose College members are permitted to enter Lincoln College through on Ascension Day each year. The door is opened for five minutes and it is the only time during the year that this door is unlocked. Brasenose members are then served an ale by Lincoln College, which is traditionally flavoured with ground ivy.

The main college site comprises three quads, the original Old Quad, the small second quad affectionately known as the Deer Park, and the large New Quad, as well as collection of smaller houses facing Radcliffe Square and the High Street. The original college buildings comprised a single two storey quad, incorporating the original kitchen of Brasenose Hall on the south side. In the 17th century a third floor was added to the quad to form the current Old Quad. A separate chapel was also built to the south, connected to the quad by a library built over a cloister as shown in a 1670 print, thus enclosing the Deer Park. The cloister was for a time the college burial ground, and evidence suggests there were at least 59 people buried there, with the last recorded burial being in 1754. The cloister was filled in to make two or three chambers in around 1807, used as student bedrooms or administrative offices until 1971, when the space was converted into the graduate common room. More recently the graduate common moved to the Old Quad, and the space, still known as the "Old Cloisters" has been used as a library overspill area, a teaching room and, in 2010-11, as the temporary Senior Common Room. The nickname for the Chapel Quad is often thought to be a friendly jibe at Magdalen College which has a genuine deer park known as The Grove; a former Brasenose student named C.C. Bradford (matriculated 1884) claimed that in 1886 he was walking through Chapel Quad with R.H Tilney (matriculated 1885), discussing a visit to Magdalen the previous day. When they saw a man preparing to put up a post and chain fence Mr. Bradford exclaimed, 'They are going to give us a deer-park', and his companion replied, 'By Jove we’ll call it that'.

During the 16th century the dining hall was heated by an open fire in the centre of the room, supplemented by movable braziers. In the 1680s the hall was renovated, with a raised floor to accommodate a wine cellar below and a reconstructed roof. Another renovation phrase in the mid-18th century included a new chimneypiece, a new ceiling to cover the original timber beams and two gilded chandeliers. The original brazen nose was placed above high table in 1890.

Building began on the current chapel in 1656, and it replaced an old chapel which was located in a space now occupied by the Senior Common Room. Building materials were taken from a disused chapel at the site of St Mary’s College (now Frewin Hall), transported piece by piece by horse-and-cart to Brasenose College. The chapel, a mix of Gothic and Baroque styles, features a hanging fan vault ceiling of wood and plaster, and was consecrated in 1666. The internal fittings are largely 18th and 19th century, and include chandeliers presented to the college in 1749. These were donated to a parish church and later converted to gas but then returned to Brasenose when the church switched to electric lights. The chandeliers were then converted back to their original state so that candles could be used in them once again. The current library was begun in 1658 and received its first books in 1664. It replaced a smaller library on Staircase IV, which is now used as a meeting room. The books in the current library were fixed by chains, which were only removed in the 1780s, over a hundred years later.

New Quad was designed by Jackson and finished in 1911, replacing a number of existing buildings. The current site was completed in 1961 with new buildings, used largely for first year undergraduate accommodation, designed by the architects Powell and Moya. In 2010, a project was begun to renovate the kitchens, servery, dining hall and some other areas of college. The project included the installation of under floor heating and a new timber floor in the dining hall, new kitchen equipment, a new servery area, additional dining and meeting places, and disabled access to the dining hall. During the project, the Old Quad housed a temporary dining hall and kitchen, while the New Quad was used to store building materials. The dining hall refurbishment was completed by September 2010, whilst the remaining work was completed around Easter 2012. The new catering facilities were unveiled during a ceremony on 14 March 2012. During the ceremony, college members gathered in a restored 15th century building in the heart of college, originally the college kitchens and most recently used as the servery. This room, to be known as the Mediaeval Kitchen, will be used as a new dining space in addition to the main dining hall, which will remain the usual location for student meals. The temporary kitchen and builder's yard were removed and the Quads restored to their normal state during the Easter 2012 vacation. In recent years the Junior Common Room (JCR) and Bar have also been renovated.

The college also has a large undergraduate annex situated on St Michael's Street, developed from Frewin Hall in the 1940s, and a graduate annex shared with St Cross College was completed in 1995. The St Cross annex is laid out in clusters of five bed-sitting rooms, sharing two shower rooms and a well equipped kitchen. A second graduate annex, Holly Bush Row, was opened in September 2008 and is located close to the railway station and Said Business School. It consists of single rooms with en suite bathrooms and shared kitchens. There are also a small number of other graduate houses offered by the college.