VI. THE BUILDINGS, PROPERTY, ETC., OF THE COLLEGE.
The front quadrangle of the College is as it stood when the College was first built, except that as usual an extra story was added in about the time of James I., and that for the old mullioned windows have been unhappily substituted in a few places modern square ones. The Principal’s lodgings were at first, as always in Colleges, above and about the gateway.
The Chapel was originally the room now used for the Common Room, namely, on the first floor of No. 1 staircase, and the foundation stone was no doubt placed there as leading to the chapel. The shape of the old chapel windows may still be seen on the outside of the south side of the room. The present chapel was built between 26th June, 1656, and the day of consecration (to St. Hugh and St. Chad) 17th Nov., 1666. There is a persistent tradition that the design of the chapel was due to Sir Christopher Wren, and that the roof at least came from the chapel of St. Mary’s College (now Frewen Hall). In support of this latter belief are the two facts that the roof does not appear precisely to fit the window spaces of the building, and that the principal rafters of the chapel and of the western part of the hall are numbered consecutively, as if they once belonged to a single building. The architecture of the chapel is interesting as a genuine effort to combine classical and Gothic styles. The ceiling, with its beautiful and ingeniously constructed fan-tracery, and the windows are Gothic, but the internal buttresses and altar decoration are Grecian. The East window[225] is by Hardman (1855), the West (by Pearson) was given by Principal Cawley in 1776. Among the other painted glass is one on the north side to F. W. Robertson. The brass eagle was given in 1731 by T. L. Dummer; the two candelabra were replaced within the last few years, having been formerly presented to Coleshill Church, in Buckinghamshire, by the College. The pair of pre-Reformation chalices with pattens form a unique possession.
The first Library was the room now known as No. 4 one pair right, and still retains a fine panelled ceiling with red and gold colouring. The present library is of the same date as the chapel, having been finished in 1663, and is no doubt by the same architect. The internal fittings date from 1780, and not till then were the chains removed from the books. Among the few MSS. are a tenth century Terence (once in the possession of Cardinal Bembo, and therefore periodically raising unfulfilled hopes in foreign students that it might exhibit the unique recension of the other “Bembine Terence”) and the only MS. of Bishop Pearson’s minor works. A large folio printed Missal of 1520 bears a miniature of Sir Richard Sutton, with other fine illuminations. Among the printed books are several given by the founder, Bishop Smith, and by John Longland, Bishop of Lincoln. There is a copy on vellum of Alexander de Ales’s commentary on the De Animâ of Aristotle, printed at Oxford in 1481; a copy of Cranmer’s Litany (1544), and of Day’s Psalter (1563) for four-part singing. In general the library has a large number of controversial theological pieces and pamphlets, both of the latter part of Elizabeth’s reign and of the period succeeding the Restoration. For the former the College is indebted to a large and (at the time) extremely valuable donation from Dr. Henry Mason, who died in 1647. There is also a very large quantity of the theological literature of the eighteenth century, partly bequeathed by Principal Yarborough, who also presented the library of Christopher Wasse; many county histories; and many pamphlets on Oxford Reform up to and including the time of the first Commission. In all there are about 15,000 volumes, and there is an adequate endowment from the legacy of Dr. Grimbaldson. Mr. Willis Clark has remarked in his Architectural History of Cambridge that College libraries before the sixteenth century usually, in both Universities, had their sides facing east and west, the early morning light being so important; that from that time to the Restoration, when more luxurious habits had come in, they face north and south, and afterwards again east and west. It is singular that of each change Brasenose Library is the earliest example.
The Hall has remained almost untouched from the first. The open fireplace in the centre under a louvre was retained until 1760 (when the Hon. Ashton Curzon gave the present chimney-piece), and the louvre itself is still intact but hidden above the ceiling.
The north-west corner of the quadrangle affords a striking view of the dome of the Radcliffe and the spire of St. Mary’s, which has been often painted and engraved. The present grass-plot was once a formal maze or Italian garden, which is to be seen in Loggan’s view, and was removed in October 1727, much to Hearne’s disgust, to allow of a “silly statue” of Cain and Abel, the gift of Dr. George Clarke, who bought it in London, being erected in the centre. This well-known statue was for a long time believed to be an original by Giovanni da Bologna; and its removal in 1881 and subsequent destruction excited the wrath of the writer of the article on “Sculpture” in the ninth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. But the external evidence points to it being only a copy of the valuable original presented to Charles I. at Madrid, and by George III. to the great-grandfather of the present possessor, Sir William Worsley, of Hovingham Hall, Yorkshire.
The Kitchen, which forms the western part of the second quadrangle is (as at Christ Church) as old as any part of the College. The eastern side was till about 1840 an open cloister beneath the library, and in it and in front of it many former members of the College were buried.
Early in the last century the College purchased the houses between St. Mary’s and All Saints, and the idea of a front to the High Street soon forced itself on the mind. Some very heavy classical designs are preserved, by Nicholas Hawksmoor (about 1720), who erected the High Street front of Queen’s College; by Sir John Soane (1807); and by Philip Hardwick (1810); until at last a pure Gothic design by Mr. T. G. Jackson was accepted; and by the end of 1887 a gateway and tower, a Principal’s house, and some undergraduates’ rooms were erected, forming on the inside a large third quadrangle, and by its front a notable addition to the glories of the High Street. A drawing of a more ambitious design by the same architect is framed and hung in the College library.
The chief benefactors and property of the College are the following—Bp. William Smith, founder, gave Basset’s Fee near Oxford, and the entire property of the suppressed Priory of Cold Norton, lying chiefly in Oxfordshire. Sir Richard Sutton gave lands in Burgh or Erdborowe in Leicestershire; the White Hart in the Strand, London; and lands in Cropredy, North Ockington, Garsington, and Cowley. The earliest gift of all was from Mrs. Elizabeth Morley, who in 1515 gave the manor of Pinchpoll, in Faringdon, coupled with conditions of undertaking certain services in St. Margaret’s, Westminster. Joyce Frankland in 1586 gave the Red Lion in Kensington, &c., and money. Queen Elizabeth, 1572 and 1579, founds Middleton School in Lancashire, and connects it with the College by scholarships, and by giving the manor of Upberry and rectory of Gillingham. Sarah Duchess of Somerset in 1679 gave Somerset Iver and Somerset Thornhill scholarships, and alternate presentation to Wootton Rivers. William Hulme, 1691, land producing £40 a year for four exhibitions, tenable at Brasenose, from Lancashire; the property increased enormously in value, being in the Hulme district of Manchester, and now provides, besides High Schools for boys and girls at Manchester, and a Hulme Hall connected with the Victoria University, eight Senior and twelve Junior Exhibitions, of the value of £120 and £80 respectively. Sir Francis Bridgeman in 1701 gave money for an annual speech, originally in praise of James II.
Pictures, busts, &c.
In the Hall are pictures of King Alfred[226] (modern), Bp. William Smith (founder), Sir Richard Sutton (founder), Joyce Frankland (benefactress, with a sixteenth century watch in her hand), Alexander Nowell (Principal), Bp. Frodsham Hodson (Principal), William Cleaver (Principal), Thomas baron Ellesmere, Dr. John Latham, John Lord Mordaunt (benefactor), Samuel Radcliffe (Principal, two), Sarah Duchess of Somerset (benefactress), Robert Burton, Thomas Yate (Principal), Francis Yarborough (Principal), Bp. Ashurst Turner Gilbert (Principal), Edward Hartopp Cradock (Principal). The Brazen Nose is fixed in a frame beneath the picture of King Alfred. A picture of the first Marquis of Buckingham once here is now in the possession of the representatives of the family.
In the north window at the east end of the Hall are portraits of the two founders, and a face with a grotesque nose, in painted glass. The glass of the south window is modern.
In the Library are busts of Lord Grenville by Nollekens, and of Pitt.
In the Bursary is a second picture of Joyce Frankland.
In the Chapel are an old copy of Spagnoletto’s Entombment of Christ, a copy of Poussin’s Assumption of St. Paul, and busts of the two founders, formerly in niches in the middle of the north side of the Hall outside and engraved in Spelman’s Ælfredi Magni Vita (Oxon. 1678).
On the gateway outside is a metal gilt Nose of a grotesque type, probably derived from the painted glass in the hall.
On the entrance to the hall are two worn busts of Johannes Scotus Erigena and King Alfred.
In the Buttery are pictures of the Child of Hale (John Middleton, d. 1623, a Lancashire man distinguished for size and strength, after whom the Brasenose boat is always named), of Joyce Frankland, and of the Brasenose Boat in about 1825.
In the Principal’s lodgings are pictures of Lord Mordaunt, Bp. Cleaver, and Joyce Frankland.
The title of the College is “the King’s Hall and College of Brasenose in Oxford” (Aula Regia et Collegium de Brasenose in Oxonia), the spelling of the chief word being in chronological sequence, omitting minor variations, Brasinnose, Brazen Nose (eighteenth century), Brasenose; but the latest spelling is also found early in the seventeenth century, probably showing that it was at all times pronounced as a disyllable. The phrases King’s College and Collegium Regale are also found at an early date, the latter occurring on the College seal, which consists of three Gothic niches or compartments, with St. Hugh and St. Chad on either side and the Trinity in the centre: underneath is a small shield with Smyth’s arms, and round is the legend, “Sigillum commune colegii regalis de brasinnose in oxonia.”
The Arms of the College are: The escutcheon divided into three parts paleways, the centre or, thereon an escutcheon charged with the arms of the See of Lincoln (gules, two lions passant gardant in pale or, on a chief azure Our Lady crowned, sitting on a tombstone issuant from the chief, in her dexter arm the Infant Jesus, in her sinister a sceptre, all or), ensigned with a mitre, all proper: the dexter side argent, a chevron sable between three roses gules seeded or barbed vert, being the arms of the founder William Smyth: on the sinister side the arms of Sir Richard Sutton of Prestbury, knight, viz. quarterly first and fourth, argent a chevron between three bugle-horns stringed sable, for Sutton, second and third, argent a chevron between three crosses crosslet sable, for Southworth.
A coat of arms tripartite paleways is a very rare phenomenon, but is found among Oxford Colleges at Lincoln and Corpus. The cause at Brasenose was no doubt an attempt to combine symmetrically on one shield the arms of the founders, the see of Lincoln being given a disproportionate amount and a central position, from the honour brought by connection with it as both the Founder’s and the Visitor’s see. For the sake of appearance also the arms of Lincoln are placed within the field, the mitre with which they are ensigned being included in the pale. The only variations are that (1) in some old examples the arms of Lincoln cover the whole central pale, the entire College arms being ensigned with a mitre or stringed, and sometimes with a crosier and key in saltire; (2) the crosses crosslet are found as crosses crosslet fitchy or crosses patoncé. The nearest approach to an early official declaration of the arms is to be found in Richard Lee’s report from the best evidence he could obtain, made at the same time as his Visitation in 1574, and to be found in MS. H 6 of the College of Arms.
The College seems never to have had a motto, but Bishop William Smyth’s (“Dominus exaltatio mea”) has been occasionally and unofficially used, as in the new Principal’s house.