place

Christ Church, Oxford

1546 establishments in EnglandAugustinian monasteries in EnglandBuildings and structures of the University of OxfordChrist Church, OxfordColleges of the University of Oxford
Educational institutions established in the 1540sGrade I listed buildings in OxfordGrade I listed educational buildingsGrade I listed parks and gardens in OxfordshireHenry VIIIUse British English from January 2015
Tom Quad, Christ Church, Oxford
Tom Quad, Christ Church, Oxford

Christ Church (Latin: Ædes Christi, the temple or house, ædēs, of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniquely a joint foundation of the university and the cathedral of the Oxford diocese, Christ Church Cathedral, which also serves as the college chapel and whose dean is ex officio the college head. As of 2022, Christ Church had the largest financial endowment of any Oxford college at £770 million. As of 2022, the college had 661 students. Its grounds contain a number of architecturally significant buildings including Tom Tower (designed by Sir Christopher Wren), Tom Quad (the largest quadrangle in Oxford), and the Great Dining Hall, which was the seat of the parliament assembled by King Charles I during the English Civil War. The buildings have inspired replicas throughout the world in addition to being featured in films such as Harry Potter and The Golden Compass, helping Christ Church become the most popular Oxford college for tourists with almost half a million visitors annually. The college's alumni include 13 British prime ministers out of the 30 educated at Oxford (the highest number of any college at Oxford or Cambridge), as well as former prime ministers of Pakistan and Ceylon. Other notable alumni include King Edward VII, King William II of the Netherlands, the founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn, seventeen archbishops, writers Lewis Carroll (author of Alice in Wonderland) and W. H. Auden, philosopher John Locke, and scientist Robert Hooke. Albert Einstein was also associated with the college. The college has several cities and places named after it.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Christ Church, Oxford (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Christ Church, Oxford
Magpie Lane, Oxford City Centre

Geographical coordinates (GPS) Address External links Nearby Places
placeShow on map

Wikipedia: Christ Church, OxfordContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 51.750199 ° E -1.255853 °
placeShow on map

Address

Christ Church

Magpie Lane
OX1 4ES Oxford, City Centre
England, United Kingdom
mapOpen on Google Maps

linkWikiData (Q745967)
linkOpenStreetMap (15595647)

Tom Quad, Christ Church, Oxford
Tom Quad, Christ Church, Oxford
Share experience

Nearby Places

Tom Tower
Tom Tower

Tom Tower is a bell tower in Oxford, England, named after its bell, Great Tom. It is over Tom Gate, on St Aldates, the main entrance of Christ Church, Oxford, which leads into Tom Quad. This square tower with an octagonal lantern and facetted ogee dome was designed by Christopher Wren and built 1681–82. The strength of Oxford architectural tradition and Christ Church's connection to its founder, Henry VIII, motivated the decision to complete the gatehouse structure, left unfinished by Cardinal Wolsey at the date of his fall from power in 1529, and which had remained roofless since. Wren made a case for working in a Late Gothic style—that it "ought to be Gothick to agree with the Founders worke"—a style that had not been seen in a prominent building for a hundred and fifty years, making Tom Tower a lonely precursor of the Gothic Revival that got underway in the mid-18th century. Wren never came to supervise the structure as it was being erected by the stonemason he had recommended, Christopher Kempster of Burford. In 1732–34, when William Kent was called upon to make sympathetic reconstruction of the east range of Clock Court in Wolsey's Tudor Hampton Court Palace, he naturally turned to the precedent of Tom Tower for his "central ogee dome with its coronet of pilaster-like gothick finials". The tower of Dunster House at Harvard University is a direct imitation of Tom Tower, though its details have been Georgianised, and stones from Christ Church are installed in one of the house's main entryways. Tom Tower was the inspiration for the Clock Tower (formally the Old Arts Building) at the University of Auckland.

St Aldate's, Oxford
St Aldate's, Oxford

St Aldate's () is a street in central Oxford, England, named after Saint Aldate, but formerly known as Fish Street.The street runs south from the generally acknowledged centre of Oxford at Carfax. The Town Hall, which includes the Museum of Oxford, is on the east side of the street. Christ Church, with its imposing Tom Tower, faces the east end of St Aldate's, while Pembroke College (on Pembroke Square) faces its west end. Other adjoining streets include Blue Boar Street to the east side and Pembroke Street, Pembroke Square, Brewer Street, Rose Place, and Speedwell Street to the west. St Aldate's Church is on the west side of the street, in Pembroke Square. Opposite Christ Church is Alice's Shop, formerly frequented by Alice Liddell, and the model for the Sheep Shop in the "Wool and Water" chapter in Through the Looking-Glass. South of Christ Church is an entrance to Christ Church Meadow and, still on the east side, the University of Oxford's Faculty of Music, containing the Bate Collection of Musical Instruments; the building was opened in 1936 for St Catherine's Society. Oxford's police station (designed by H. F. Hurcombe, the City Estates Surveyor, and completed in 1936) and the Oxford Combined Court Centre (designed by Henry Smith and completed in 1932) opposite precede a junction with Thames Street to the west. The police station was featured in the Inspector Morse television series. After Folly Bridge over the River Thames or Isis, St Aldate's enters Grandpont and becomes Abingdon Road (A4144), leading directly south out of the city of Oxford towards the Oxford Ring Road and the villages of Kennington & Radley and the town of Abingdon.

The Bear, Oxford
The Bear, Oxford

The Bear (historically associated with The Bear Inn) is a pub in Oxford, England, that was founded in 1774 as The Jolly Trooper. It stands on the corner of Alfred Street and Blue Boar Street, opposite Bear Lane in the centre of Oxford, just north of Christ Church, on the site of St Edward's churchyard. It was converted from the early 17th century residence of the stableman (ostler) for the coaching inn, The Bear Inn, which was on the High Street, Oxford. When The Bear Inn was converted into private housing in 1801, The Jolly Trooper changed its name to The Bear (or The Bear Inn). There is a claim that by adopting its name, the current (1774) Bear Inn has acquired the history of the pub on the High Street, and so is one of the oldest pubs in Oxford. In 1952 the then landlord, Alan Course, started a collection of tie ends; a selection of the over 4,500 ties are on display around the pub. The tie collection was used as part of the plot of Colin Dexter's novel Death Is Now My Neighbour, in which Inspector Morse consults the landlord in order to identify a club tie. The building was Class II listed in January 1954. The documented history of the site on the High Street has been traced to 1241, when Lady Christina Pady bequeathed the property to St Frideswide's Priory in return for having a private mass said for her for eternity; at that time it had a dwelling house, later called Parn Hall, but this burned down in 1421. There is evidence of an inn, Le Tabard, in existence by 1432 in addition to a neighbouring piece of land with shops at the rear. It was known as The Bear Inn by 1457, and by 1523 the land at the rear was part of the pub's property; it contained stables for the coaching horses, and was bounded to the south by St Edward's churchyard. During the Dissolution of the monasteries between 1536 and 1541 the priory was taken over by Thomas Wolsey, who created Christ Church on the grounds, and the "eternal" masses for Christina Pady ceased. In the early 17th century a dwelling for the pub stableman was built over St Edward's churchyard, and this dwelling was converted in 1774 to the present day pub, with evidence of skeletons from the churchyard still in the cellar. The Mitchells & Butlers pub, All Bar One on 124 High Street, along with the neighbouring shop, 123, now occupies the site of the original Bear Inn on the High Street.