NEW COLLEGE

New College Lane is a tortuous medieval thoroughfare and, as we go along it, the tower and chapel of William of Wickham’s[1] great foundation rise before us. At the second turning of the lane, the gate with the Annunciation over it comes into sight. There is another Annunciation on the inside of the same gate and a third over the stairs leading to the hall. This devotion, very popular during the English middle ages, was especially dear to the founder and there are several similar examples on the gate of his school at Winchester. The kneeling figures are, of course, William of Wickham himself.

The bishop of Winchester established his college here in 1379, and it is one of the several scholastic foundations built to educate clergy to take the place of those who died in the Black Death of 1348-1349.

The chapel, the hall and the two lower floors of the first quadrangle were ready by 1386. The kitchen and the Long Room[2] were added soon afterwards. The cloister, the garth of which was intended for use as a cemetery, and the belfry date from 1400. The warden’s barn[3] was put up in 1402. The building known as the Chequer[4] was also erected in the fifteenth century. The main ranges of the Garden Quad­rangle and the top storey of the first quadrangle were built in the seventeenth century. The two extremities of the former belong to the eighteenth.

There is much of interest in the chapel. Many fine brasses lie in the floor of the ante-chapel, some of them showing the medieval form of the academic hood – a short cape with a hood attached similar to the capuce worn by the Dominicans at the present day. The modern version, straggling down the back with an enormous hole for the head, was introduced to make it easy to put on over the full-bottomed wig. The incongruous glass in the windows of the choir belongs to the eighteenth century and that of the great west window – equally unsuitable – is by Sir Joshua Reynolds.[5] The glass in the wings of the ante-chapel is genuine fourteenth-century and it is sad to think that more of this old glass was deliberately destroyed to make room for the Reynolds windows. At the back stands a statue of Lazarus by Epstein.[6] The reredos is almost entirely modern, but based on the medieval one. The stalls, though not ancient, incorporate many old misericords. The roof was restored in the late eighteenth century and, again, by Sir George Gilbert Scott between 1877 and 1881. William of Wickham’s crosier is displayed in a case on the north of the sanctuary.
The hall is worth seeing, and the cloister – an ambulacrum, not a working cloister as in a monastery – is also beautiful. In the garden is a fine range of the town wall. Outside it, close to the place where the new buildings of the college now stand, was the house of the Trinitarian Friars.[7]

Members of the college were strongly opposed to Henry VIII’s re­ligious changes; nearly all the fellows were deprived and went to Douai. Some, however, lived on as best they could in Oxford, as did Mr Henslowe “once of newe colledge, and expeld out of the house for poperie, who lyeth nowe at the signe of the Blewe Bore.”[8] The warden, Dr London,[9] on the contrary, became a royal agent for the dissolution of the monasteries.

The college formerly possessed the right of conducting its own examinations for degrees. This has now been given up.(From Goulder, Pilgrimage Pamphlets: Oxford & Cambridge, 1963)

When college libraries were ransaked for Catholic books in 1535, manuscript pages were said to have been as thick as Autumn leaves in New College Quad.

New College's great contribution of personnel to the foundation of the English Catholic seminary at Douai includes Thomas Stapleton, Thomas Harding and Nicholas Saunders; the college’s martyrs include Blessed John Bodey, Bl. John Munden, Bl. John Slade, and Bl. James Fenn. For more on New College, see their site.

[1] Bishop of Winchester 1367-1404.
[2] This is on the north side of Queen's Lane before it turns south to St Peter's Church. It was built as a latrine and is of two storeys, the lower of which contained the cess pit.
[3] On the south side of New College Lane, just after it turns into the section which leads to the gate.
[4] This is on the left as you pass through the gate leading from the first quadrangle into the Garden Quadrangle.
[5] Lived 1723-1792. No disparagement is intended for Reynolds' work as such, but it is surely out of place here.
[6] Lived 1880-1959. Sir Jacob Epstein.
[7] The order was founded by St John of Matha (lived 1169-1213) and St Felix of Valois (lived 1127-1213) about 1197. All churches of the order were to be dedicated to the Holy Trinity and its work was to be the care of the poor and the redemption of captives from the infidel. The habit is exactly similar to that of the Dominicans but with a red and blue cross on the scapular and on the cloak. They had about eleven English houses at the time of the suppression.
[8] Catholic Record Society, vol. 22, p. 100.
[9] Lived c. 1486-1583. Warden of New College 1526. He died in prison serving a sentence for perjury.