Merton College

Merton College stands in Oxford’s south-eastern corner on land Walter de Merton acquired in the 1260s. The college moved to this site by 1274 and began a rapid building programme that produced the hall, chapel and Front Quad before the 13th century ended. Mob Quad, built between 1288 and 1378, is claimed as Oxford’s oldest quadrangle, and the library inside it, dating from 1373, is the world’s oldest continuously operating academic library. The chapel replaced the parish church of St John and served both college and town until 1891, when the parish moved elsewhere. The great tower of the chapel was finished in 1450, and its enormous east window shows the shift from Early English to later styles. The college’s history includes moments that shaped the nation. During the Civil War Merton was the only Oxford college to side with Parliament, led by Warden Nathaniel Brent. Royalists under Charles I occupied the buildings, and the Queen’s Room above the arch between Front and Fellows’ Quads housed Henrietta Maria. After the war Brent presided over a parliamentary visitation that removed figures like John Greaves from office. Alumni include J. R. R. Tolkien, five Nobel laureates, Prime Minister Liz Truss and Emperor Naruhito. Visitors enter a world of medieval stone and later craftsmanship. Front Quad’s north range was built from three houses east of the old parish church, and the Fellows’ Garden occupies land once owned by the college. The chapel’s choir, re-founded in 2007, sings services with sixteen choral scholars under Benjamin Nicholas. The library in Mob Quad still holds its original medieval books, and the Queen’s Room keeps a portrait of Charles I as a reminder of the college’s wartime role.