Trinity College Durham Quad
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The site where Trinity College now stands was originally occupied by Durham College. This college had been founded in 1286, at around the same time as the oldest colleges that survive until today.
Trinity College was founded by Sir Thomas Pope. Born in 1507 he was educated at Banbury Grammar School and Eton.
In 1553 he bought the site and the derelict remains of Durham College from the Benedictines and in the following year, on May Day, he issued his statutes, dedicating the college "to the honour of the Holy and undivided Trinity " The statutes are signed by his second wife, Lady Elizabeth Blount (whom he established as foundress), as well as by himself. He died in 1559 and was buried with his first wife, but the foundress had his body brought to the college chapel where she erected the beautiful tomb in which together he and she lie.
Some of the old monastic buildings still remain and form part of the little Durham Quad beyond the chapel.
The chapel, 1690, designed by Dean Aldrich of Christ Church, possibly with the help of Wren, is a perfect example of English Renaissance work and of the Baroque as far as this can be found in England. The wood- carving is attributed to Grinling Gibbons.
The present hall was built on the site of the monk's refectory which collapsed when an attempt was made to construct cellars under it. This was in the year 1618 and associated with one of the eccentricities of President Kettell, perhaps the greatest of the college's presidents. Elected as such in 1599 he reigned over the college in that capacity for forty four years.
In 1594 Sir George Calvert entered the college as a commoner. Under Sir Robert Cecil, in 1619, he was Secretary of State. In 1625 he retired from public life, having been raised to the Irish peerage as Lord Baltimore and took a leading part in the founding of Maryland, the principal object being to establish a country where Catholics could enjoy liberty of conscience.
One of the great men of this period was Gilbert Sheldon, immortalised in the Sheldonian Theatre, opposite the college, on the other side of the Broad.
In that period of general academic stagnation, the eighteenth century, Trinity produced William Pitt. The nineteenth century marked the turn of the academic tide. In the year 1817 Newman was a freshman at Trinity, the college making him an honorary fellow in 1878. His portrait in the hall is a copy of the one by Ouless hanging in Oriel, and was painted by the sixteen year old daughter of the president, John Percival, on the occasion of Newman's farewell visit in 1880.
Further dates : Library 1417, Garden Quad 1665-82.