Staircase and Doorways of the Bodleian Library and Picture Gallery.
Shewing the junction of Bodley’s work with the older panelling.
staircases, particularly between the entrances to the Bodleian and the Picture Gallery, where the old work is panelled, and has a corbel-table the same as the rest of the front, but the new work is plain. The upper storey of this building joins Duke Humphrey’s Library, and is lighted by a large window at each end, and another opposite the old library. This window is a curious combination of mullions, transoms, and tracery of different forms. The rest of the windows are small.
Sir Thomas Bodley, shortly before his death, had conceived and matured the plan of a new building for the Public Schools of the University, and everything was settled for carrying the plan into execution; but he did not live to see it commenced. He died at his house in London in 1613, his body was brought to Oxford, and buried in Merton College Chapel on the 29th of March in that year; and the day after the funeral the first stone of the new Schools was laid, the building of which occupied the next six years.
This building, which, with the Bodleian Library for its west side, forms a complete quadrangle, is plain, poor, and heavy in its general appearance, and little skill has been displayed in giving either variety of
GOTHIC BUILDINGS OF OXFORD.
Groining, Gateway of the Schools, A.D. 1610.