New College

New College stands in central Oxford between Holywell Street and New College Lane, close to the Bridge of Sighs. Founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, it was one of Oxford’s first colleges to teach undergraduates and appoint tutors. The college’s choir has recorded over one hundred albums and won two Gramophone Awards. Its sister college is King’s College, Cambridge, and the two share the same coat of arms. The college was deliberately planned around a main quadrangle, larger than all six existing Oxford colleges combined. The college’s history includes its role in the English Civil War, when Royalists stored munitions in its cloisters and bell tower. During Monmouth’s rebellion in 1685, a fellow commanded university volunteers from the college’s bowling green. Students once avoided university examinations, taking only the college’s own tests, and the college was long reserved for men. In 2022, its students scored 75.5 on the Norrington Table, following a peak of 83.5 in 2020. Visitors enter through the Gate Tower into the Great Quad, where an oval turf lawn sits at the centre. The dining hall measures eighty feet by forty feet, with linenfold panelling and a restored oak roof. The chapel, based on Merton Chapel’s plan, has a medieval interior altered after the Reformation. The cloisters, consecrated as a burial site in 1400, lead to the bell tower. Later additions include the Garden Quadrangle, Holywell Quad, and the Gradel Quadrangles, which feature carvings of endangered species and diamond-shaped windows inspired by Soviet architecture.