TRINITY COLLEGE was founded by Sir Thomas Pope, a rich lawyer, in 1555. The site was previously occupied by Durham College, a now extinct foundation, which existed for the training of students from the Benedictine monastery of Durham.

There is much that is admirable about the buildings and grounds of Trinity; and its position is so little secluded that anyone passing down Broad Street or Parks Road can hardly help noticing its beauties. The first illustration shews the College as seen from Broad Street. In the foreground are the handsome wrought-iron gates—there is a companion pair at the verge of the garden, in Parks Road—beyond which is the square Entrance Tower leading to the Small Quadrangle, decorated by four figures representing Astronomy, Geometry, Divinity, and Medicine. The old cottage buildings on the right of the Porter's Lodge, facing Broad Street, which are now used as College rooms, are in striking contrast with the new buildings designed by Mr. T. G. Jackson, R.A., and finished in 1887; these are some of the last century's most successful additions to ancient Oxford.

The Chapel has an unwonted fragrance, for the wainscot is of cedar; it is famous also for its carving, being in this particular one of the best examples of the work of Grinling Gibbons. The Hall has an unusually good collection of portraits. Of all the buildings the Buttery is probably the most ancient.

Original

Original

The second illustration, taken from Parks Road, shews a part of the garden, with the Inner Quadrangle in the background; this latter is built in the Italian manner, after Wren's design. The costume of the loiterers in the garden, of both sexes, suggests that Mr. Matthison painted his picture on some warm day of spring. On such a day it is pleasant to fleet the time carelessly amid such scenes as these; nor must the beautiful Lime Tree Walk escape mention, whose pleached boughs form a continuous archway of foliage.

Trinity can point to a remarkably long list of distinguished members, of whom it may suffice to name here the poets Lodge and Denham, Harrington (author of Oceana), Chatham, Professor Freeman, Bishop Stubbs, and Richard Burton. But Burtons stay was a short one; he heard already "the call of the wild."