Corpus Christi College, Oxford

Oriel Square, formerly known as Canterbury Square, is a square in central Oxford, England, located south of the High Street. The name was changed after the Second World War at the request of Oriel College which maintained that the square had originally been known as Oriel Square.

Canterbury College (1311–1540), was a University of Oxford college, owned and run by Christ Church Priory, Canterbury. Shortly after the dissolution of the monasteries, the college's hall, chapel and other buildings were surrendered on 10 April 1540 and acquired by Christ Church.

Grove Walk (aka Merton Grove and Grove Passage) is a short historic leafy walkway running north–south in central Oxford, England, situated on land between Merton College to the east and Corpus Christi College to the west. It provides one of the entrances to Christ Church Meadow from the north. To the north, Grove Walk connects with Merton Street through a gateway surrounded by railings. On the other side of Merton Street, the route continues as the narrow medieval Magpie Lane. To the south it passes through what used to be the city wall and leads to Dead Man's Walk on Merton Field. Beyond that via Merton Walk to the wide Broad Walk is the main part of Christ Church Meadow. In 1701, Corpus Christi College attempted to acquire some of this strip of land, but this was resisted.To the south, the first hot air balloon ascent in Britain was made by James Sadler (1753–1828), when he ascended from Merton Field on 4 October 1783, landing northeast of Oxford in Woodeaton.An 1864 block separates Grove Walk from the Back Quad at Merton College.By the late 19th century, Magpie Lane to the north was known as "Grove Street", but in 1927 the name was changed back to Magpie Lane.The building in the south-western corner of Merton College is also called Grove. The name perhaps derives because this area used to be an orchard.

Christ Church Picture Gallery is an art gallery located inside Christ Church, a college of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. The gallery holds an important collection of about 300 Old Master paintings and nearly 2,000 drawings. The gallery consists largely of Italian art from the 14th to 18th centuries. including paintings by famous artists such as Fra Angelico, Salvator Rosa and Paolo Veronese. The gallery also holds drawings by Raphael, Albrecht Dürer, Michelangelo, and a great range of other Italian and European artists, as well as a collection of Russian icons. The greater part of the collection was bequeathed by a former member of the college, General John Guise, arriving after his death in 1765. Since then, the collection has been supplemented by several bequests, notably from William Fox-Strangways and Walter Savage Landor, both of thom donated 14th and 15th-century Italian paintings. The gallery is open to the public.

Magpie Lane is a narrow historic lane in central Oxford, England. It leads south from the High Street where it is at its narrowest, now completely pedestrianised as a pavement, and north from the cobbled Merton Street. To the west is Oriel College (including the Rhodes building of 1910 at the northern end) and to the east is University College, two of the oldest Oxford colleges. On the northeast corner there is a 1902 house, now the Quod restaurant. A small cul-de-sac street, Kybald Street, leads off Magpie Lane at the southern end to the east, giving access to the rear of University College and Kybald Twychen, owned by Corpus Christi College. South from Merton Street, the lane continues as Grove Walk (a.k.a. Merton Grove or Grove Passage) between Merton College to the east and Corpus Christi College to the west, giving pedestrian access via railinged gates to Dead Man's Walk, Merton Field, and Christ Church Meadows. The building in the south-western corner of Merton College is also called Grove. The name perhaps has been derived from this area having been used as an orchard.

Oriel College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England. Located in Oriel Square, the college has the distinction of being the oldest royal foundation in Oxford (a title formerly claimed by University College, whose claim of being founded by King Alfred is no longer promoted). In recognition of this royal connection, the college has also been historically known as King's College and King's Hall. The reigning monarch of the United Kingdom (since 2022, Charles III) is the official visitor of the college.The original medieval foundation established in 1324 by Adam de Brome, under the patronage of King Edward II of England, was the House of the Blessed Mary at Oxford, and the college received a royal charter in 1326.: 1  In 1329, an additional royal grant of a manor house, La Oriole, eventually gave rise to its common name. The first design allowed for a provost and ten fellows, called "scholars", and the college remained a small body of graduate fellows until the 16th century, when it started to admit undergraduates. During the English Civil War, Oriel played host to high-ranking members of the king's Oxford Parliament.The main site of the college incorporates four medieval halls: Bedel Hall, St Mary Hall, St Martin Hall, and Tackley's Inn, the last being the oldest standing medieval hall in Oxford.: 2  The college has nearly 40 fellows, about 300 undergraduates and some 250 graduates. Oriel was the last of Oxford's men's colleges to admit women in 1985, after more than six centuries as an all-male institution. Today, however, the student body has almost equal numbers of men and women. Oriel's notable alumni include two Nobel laureates; prominent fellows have included founders of the Oxford Movement. Among Oriel's more notable possessions are a painting by Bernard van Orley and three pieces of medieval silver plate. As of the 2020–21 academic year, the college is ranked twentieth in academic performance out of thirty colleges in the Norrington Table, having topped the table in 2015–16.

Oriel Street is a narrow but historic street running between the High Street to the north and Oriel Square to the south in central Oxford, England. The street is now blocked off to traffic by bollards at the High Street end. It passes between the main site of Oriel College (hence its name) to the east and Oriel's newer "Island" site to the west. At the High Street end to the east is the 1911 Rhodes Building, named after the former Oriel student Cecil Rhodes, who went on to colonize the African state of Rhodesia (also named after him).

Christ Church Library is a Georgian building that forms the south side of Peckwater Quadrangle in Christ Church, Oxford, England. To the east is Canterbury Quadrangle. The library houses the college's modern lending library and early printed books on two floors.

Merton College Library (in Merton College, Oxford) is one of the earliest libraries in England and the oldest academic library in the world still in continuous daily use. The library is located in several parts of the college, and houses a priceless collection of early printed books and more than 300 medieval manuscripts. The historic collection was initially built through benefactions, including manuscripts donated by the medieval clergyman William Reade. The library also contains early printed books from the personal libraries of Griffin Higgs and Henry Kent, who originally donated approximately 600 and 800 volumes respectively. The main collection runs to approximately 70,000 volumes. The oldest part, known as the Upper Library, is on the first floor of two orthogonal ranges of buildings that were built around 1373 by William Humberville as part of the completion of Mob Quad, one of the first collegiate quadrangles. The Upper Library was improved in the 16th century under Warden Sir Henry Savile. Large dormer windows were added to the roof to allow more light in, and Thomas Bodley reorganized it in the new Continental style; the old book chests and lecterns were replaced by bookshelves — among the first to be used in England — with benches between them. The Upper Library still retains these 16th-century fittings. It also contains a number of book chests, some chained books, one of Elizabeth I's Welsh Bibles, a matching pair of 16th-century globes (one of the earth, the other of the heavens), and a collection of astrolabes and other early scientific instruments. Although the main academic library is housed elsewhere, the Upper Library is still regularly used by members of the college and is open to visitors by arrangement. The library also has important collections of papers and manuscripts from three former Mertonians: mountaineer Andrew "Sandy" Irvine and authors T. S. Eliot and Max Beerbohm. The Library is mentioned in the 1925 novel The Great Gatsby written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald, where the young and mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby claims to be an "Oxford man".

The Oriel Square tennis court was a real tennis court that was located in Oriel Square, central Oxford, England. The Liber Albus mentions the Oriel court being in Vinehall Lane in 1577.Charles I played tennis here with his nephew Prince Rupert in December 1642 and King Edward VII had his first tennis lesson here in 1859.The court survived until 1923, when it was used as a lecture hall by Oriel College, though it may have seen earlier use as a theatre. The site is now the location of Oriel College's Harris Building, used for student accommodation, a seminar room and lecture theatre.The only active court left in the city is the Merton Street tennis court.

St Mary Hall was a medieval academic hall of the University of Oxford. It was associated with Oriel College from 1326 to 1545, but functioned independently from 1545 until it was re-incorporated into Oriel College in 1902.

Mob Quad is a four-sided group of buildings from the 13th and 14th centuries in Merton College, Oxford, surrounding a small lawn. It is often claimed to be the oldest quadrangle in Oxford and elsewhere, although Merton's own Front Quad was actually enclosed earlier (albeit with a less unified design) and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, says that its own Old Court is the oldest structure of its type in either Oxford or Cambridge. The quadrangle pattern has since been copied at many other colleges and universities worldwide. It was built in three distinct phases. The oldest part is the college's Treasury or Muniment Room that stands above and behind the arch in the north east corner. The roof of this part is strikingly steep and is made of stone in order to protect it (and its contents) from fire. The steep pitch of the roof is necessary to support the weight of the stone. The present roof was restored with new Purbeck stone in 1966. The upper floor has always been used to store the college muniments, while the ground floor was probably the original bursary. It is not known exactly when the building was completed, but there are references to it in the college accounts for 1288 and 1291. The Muniment Room being built above a vaulted arch is suggested as evidence that the range of buildings to the south was either planned at the time of the original design or was replacing an existing building. This range to the south of the Muniment Room (the East side) was complete by about 1310–1320. The matching North side is probably slightly earlier and apparently stands on the site of the former church of St John, which was no longer needed once the new chapel was complete. The college accounts indicate that the old church was being used as rooms by 1308, and it is possible that parts of its structure were incorporated into the new building.These buildings were designed, and are still used, as accommodation for members of the college. They consist of three storeys of rooms, the third being built in the steeply-pitched attics. The rooms are arranged in sets on either side of central wooden staircases. The walls are thick and faced in rag-finished Cotswold stone. There are no chimneys and although all the rooms had fireplaces and chimneys by about 1600, they have been removed in modern times as the coal fireplaces have been replaced with electric heating. The south and west ranges which complete the quadrangle were built in 1373–1378. They were built to provide more accommodation (on the ground floor) and to house the expanding college library (on the upper floor). The old part of the library is still there, and, still expanding, it also now occupies most of the ground floor as well (and other parts of the college). The large dormer windows were added as part of Warden Savile's rebuilding work which began in 1589. The origin of the name "Mob Quad" is obscure. On older plans and accounts the quad is called variously Little Quadrangle, Old Quadrangle, Bachelors' Quadrangle (that is, B.A. Fellows), Postmasters' Quadrangle, and Undergraduates' Quadrangle (at least after the construction of Fellows' Quadrangle). The word "mob", derived from the Latin mobile vulgus (the fickle crowd) does not appear in English until the late 17th century, and was not commonly used for Mob Quad until the end of the 18th century. It was possibly originally a humorous description of the occupants. The lawn is a 20th-century addition.