Even to a Christ Church man, the most beautiful quad in Oxford is Canterbury Quad at St. John’s College, Oxford with its elegant simplicity and architectural beauty. Enter the quad and high up in a niche on the far side you will see Charles I who looks across to his queen, Henrietta Maria, in a niche behind you. This quadrangle was the creation of the much-maligned Archbishop Laud, President of the College and counsellor to the king. But in Oxford, Laud is remembered for his scholarship and in particular for his library – especially for his Arabic collection – a collection which he took care to disperse to safety when he realized that his time had come and trial and certain death would follow. St. John’s is one of the most spacious colleges in Oxford but there are corners out of the public eye. My own favourite is a sunken garden reached from a staircase off Canterbury Quad. It is a sunken garden full of shrubs and a tiny raised pond with a bench from where one can observe the water lilies and goldfish.
Goldfish! Leave St. John’s. Walk passed Balliol, along busy Cornmarket to Carfax and across to St. Aldates and you will quickly reach Christ Church, through Tom Gate and into Tom Quad offering you a magnificent pond with exquisite lilies, a statue, goldfish the size of sharks and beyond it a glorious cathedral. This quadrangle was intended to be a cloister, but when Cardinal Wolsey, the founder of the College, fell out with Henry VIII, so too, did his architectural vision. The bare plinths stand as a monument to that moment. Visit the cathedral another time and instead walk from Tom Quad into Palladian Peckwater to the far gate which leads into Merton Street. Look to your left and on the opposite side of the square is Oriel College. Enter the quad and ahead of you above the hall doors you will notice Regnente Caroli cut into the stonework during the reign of Charles I. The statues above appear to be the college founder, Edward II alongside Charles I – perhaps James I. Oriel was the home of the nineteenth century Oxford Movement – the college of Newman and James Mozley. Further on from Oriel on The High is the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin where Newman preached. Mozley’s future was at Christ Church where he became Canon.
To know more of the Victorian High Church and its perceptions of Laud and his times, read, J.M.R.Bennett (Christ Church, Oxford) The Victorian High Church and the Era of the Great Rebellion.
see www.davenantpress.co.uk