Tom Tower, Christ Church

Tom Tower is named for its bell, Great Tom.

This square tower with an octagonal lantern and facetted ogee dome was designed by Christopher Wren and built 1681–82. The strength of Oxford architectural tradition and Christ Church's connection to its founder, Henry V111, motivated the decision to complete the gatehouse structure, left unfinished by Cardinal Wolsey at the date of his fall from power in 1529, and which had remained roofless since.

Wren made a case for working in a late Gothic Style - that it "ought to be Gothick to agree with the Founders worke" - a style that had not been seen in a prominent building for a hundred and fifty years.

Wren never came to supervise the structure as it was being erected by the mason he had recommended, Christopher Kempster, of Burford.

In 1732-34, when William Kent was called upon to make sympathetic reconstruction of the east range of Clock Court in Wolsey's Tudor Hampton Court Palace, he naturally turned to the precedent of Tom Tower for his "central ogee dome with its coronet of pilaster-like gothick finials" The tower of Dunster House at harvard University is a direct imitation of Tom Tower, and stones from Christchurch are installed in one of the house's main entryways.  It has been pointed out by many Pembroke College students that the best view of Tom Tower is from their porter's lodge!