Volume 1

Brasenose College quatercentenary monographs.

Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Brasenose College quatercentenary monographs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    23/584 (page 3)
    THE SITE OF THE COLLEGE BEFORE ITS FOUNDATION, INCLUDING BRASENOSE AND LITTLE UNIVERSITY HALLS Owing to the central position of Brasenose and its proximity to the High Street the present buildings of the College cover an area which has considerable interest for antiquaries. Not only were the early buildings which abutted on the High of some importance, but the ancient School Street, running from the west end of St. Mary’s northward to the city wall, was filled with academical halls of varying date, many of which are now built over by the College. And to two of them (Brase- nose and Little University) a quite special interest belongs, as will be seen in the following pages. No apology is therefore needed for attempting a sketch of the history of the site before A.D. 1509. There is no satisfactory view of the city older than that engraved for Agas in 1588, of which only one imperfect copy survives, but which was fortunately re-engraved from a com- plete copy by Whittlesey in 1728. Even in 1588, as a glance at Agas’s Map orView(for it is a combination of the two) will show, three-fourths of the space within the walls was open ground or gardens: though at one particular earlier period (about 1250) the intra-mural town was decidedly more populous, so that the proportion was nearer one-half. In accordance with this the exacter indications of dimensions and description which are found when dealing with High Street tenements give way to vaguer terms as soon as one leaves that thoroughfare. The following description deals first with the High Street frontage, then with the Eastern face of the College (School Street), and lastly with Brasenose Lane as far as the limits of Lincoln College. Not all the known facts are given in detail, but such as contribute to the direct history of each tenement or garden. B.N.C. I A