Portal:University of Oxford

The buildings of Nuffield College are to the west of Oxford's city centre, on the former site of the largely disused basin of the Oxford Canal. Nuffield College was founded in 1937 after a donation to the University of Oxford by the car manufacturer Lord Nuffield. The initial designs of the architect Austen Harrison, which were heavily influenced by Mediterranean architecture, were rejected by Nuffield, who described them as "un-English". Harrison then aimed for "something on the lines of Cotswold domestic architecture", as Nuffield wanted. The college was built to the revised plans between 1949 and 1960. During construction, the tower, about 150 feet (46 m) tall, was redesigned to hold the college's library. Reaction to the architecture has been largely unfavourable. It has been described as "Oxford's biggest monument to barren reaction" and "a hodge-podge from the start". However, the architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner thought that the tower helped the Oxford skyline and predicted that it would "one day be loved". The writer Simon Jenkins doubted Pevsner's prediction, though, saying that "vegetation" was the "best hope" for the tower, and for the rest of the college too. (Full article...)

J. R. R. Tolkien was a British writer and university professor, best known as the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. He was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford from 1925 to 1945, and Merton Professor of English Language and Literature, also at Oxford, from 1945 to 1959. Tolkien was a close friend of C. S. Lewis, with whom he shared membership in the Oxford literary discussion group the "Inklings". In addition to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien's published fiction includes The Silmarillion and other posthumously published books about what he called a legendarium, a connected body of tales, fictional histories, invented languages, and other literary essays about an imagined world called Arda, and Middle-earth. Most of these works were compiled from Tolkien's notes by his son Christopher Tolkien. The enduring popularity and influence of Tolkien's works have established him as the "father of modern fantasy literature". Tolkien's other published fiction includes stories not directly related to the legendarium, some of them originally told to his children. (more...)

Harris Manchester College, on Mansfield Road just to the east of the city centre, was established in 1786 in Manchester, and was initially called the Manchester Academy. It provided education to religious non-conformists who at that time were not allowed to study at the universities of Oxford or Cambridge. Between 1803 and 1840, the academy was based in York to accommodate its principal, Charles Wellbeloved, who would not move to Manchester. After a period in London (1853 to 1889), it moved to Oxford, with buildings designed by the architect Thomas Worthington opening in 1893. The chapel has ornate wood carvings and notable stained-glass windows by Sir Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris. It became a Permanent Private Hall of the university in 1990, and gained full college status in 1996. The college's name reflects its history in Manchester and a donation from Lord Harris of Peckham. It has about 110 undergraduate students and 40 postgraduates, all of whom are mature students (over 21), and is one of the smallest colleges at Oxford; the Principal is the theologian Ralph Waller, who is also Director of the Farmington Institute for Christian Studies which is based at the college. (Full article...)