Tom Quad

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Tom Quad

The Great Quadrangle more popularly known as Tom Quad, is one of the quadrangles of Christ Church, Oxford

Christ Church, Oxford

Christ Church , is one of the largest Colleges of the University of Oxford of the University of Oxford in England. As well as being a college, Christ Church is also the cathedral church of the diocese of Oxford, namely Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford....
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Christ Church College Quadrangle Oxford Uk

The Great Quadrangle more popularly known as Tom Quad, is one of the quadrangles of Christ Church, Oxford

Christ Church, Oxford

Quad

Quad may refer to:...
in Oxford

Oxford

Oxford is a City status in the United Kingdom, and the county town of Oxfordshire, in South East England. It has a population of 151,000. The rivers River Cherwell and River Thames run through Oxford and meet south of the city centre....
, measuring 264 by 261 feet. Although it was begun by Cardinal Wolsey, he was unable to complete it. Wolsey planned that it would actually be a cloister

Cloister

A cloister is a covered walk with an open colonnade on one side, running along the walls of buildings that face a quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cathedral or church usually indicates that it is part of a monastic foundation....
, and the supports required for this can be seen at short intervals around the quadrangle. The quad was finished when John Fell

John Fell (clergyman)

John Fell , served as Dean of Christ Church, Oxford, Oxford, and later concomitantly as Bishop of Oxford....
was Dean. The funds for the building of Tom Quad were found from the suppression of three Norbertine abbeys. It is dominated to the west by Tom Tower

Tom Tower

Tom Tower is a bell tower in Oxford, England, named for its bell, Great Tom. It is over the main entrance of Christ Church, Oxford in Tom Quad, on St Aldate's....
, designed by Sir Christopher Wren. On the east side is the entrance to Christ Church Cathedral

Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford

Christ Church Cathedral is the cathedral of the diocese of Oxford, which includes the City of Oxford, England, and the surrounding countryside as far north as Banbury....
and at the south-east corner is the entrance to the college dining hall. The north contains the homes of the canons

Canon (priest)

A canon is a priest who is a member of certain bodies of the Christianity clergy subject to an ecclesiastical rule .Originally, a canon was a cleric living with others in a clergyhouse or, later, in one of the houses within the precinct or close of a cathedral and ordering his life according to the orders or rules of the church....
of Christ Church, and much of the east side is taken up with the Deanery

Deanery

Deanery is an ecclesiastical entity in both the Catholic Church and the Church of England....
, in which the Dean of the college lives. On the north-east side, the quad leads, via Kilcannon, to Peckwater Quadrangle

Peckwater Quadrangle

The Peckwater Quadrangle is one of the Quadrangle s of Christ Church, Oxford, Oxford, England. It is on the site of a medieval inn, which was run by the Peckwater family and given to St Frideswide's Priory in 1246....
and the college library. In the north-west part of the quad is the JCR

JCR

JCR may refer to:* Revolutionary Coordinating Junta of 1970s urban guerrilla communist parties in South America* Content repository API for Java ...
. Parts of the quad are still lived in by undergraduates, including the staircase above the Porter's lodge, known as "Bachelors' Row", to the left of the quadrangle when entered via Tom Gate. Batchelors' Row is only enhabited by first year male undergraduates.

In the centre of the quad, there is an ornamental pond with a statue of Mercury

Mercury (mythology)

In Roman mythology, Mercury was a messenger, and a god of trade, profit and commerce, the son of Maia Maiestas, also known as Ops, the Roman version of Cronus, and Jupiter ....
. In the past, it was traditional for "hearties

Hearties

Hearties was a term used for athletic students at the University of Oxford and elsewhere, especially in the 19th and early 20th century. The term is often used in contrast to the less athletic "aesthetes"....
" (sporty students) to throw "aesthetes" (more artistic students) into this pond. Currently, entrance to Mercury carries a heavy fine for undergraduates. The pond also contains a large Koi

Koi

, or more specifically , are ornamental domesticated varieties of the common carp Cyprinus carpio. They are also sometimes called Japanese carp....
carp apparently worth a large amount of money and donated by the Empress of Japan.

Literary references

In a famous scene from Waugh's novel, aesthete Anthony Blanche is accosted by some sportsmen in the manner described above: "I got into the fountain and, you know, it really was most refreshing, so I sported there a little and struck some attitudes, until they turned about and walked sulkily home, and I heard Boy Mulcaster saying, ‘Anyway, we did put him in Mercury’. You know, Charles, that is just what they'll be saying in thirty years' time. When they're all married to scraggy little women like hens and have cretinous porcine sons like themselves getting drunk at the same club dinner in the same coloured coats, they'll still say when my name is mentioned 'We put him in Mercury one night,' and their barnyard daughters will snigger and think their father was quite a dog in his day, and what a pity he's grown so dull. Oh, la fatigue du Nord!" Brideshead Revisited
Brideshead Revisited

Brideshead Revisited, The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder is a novel by the English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945....
, Evelyn Waugh
Evelyn Waugh

Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh was a United Kingdom writer, best known for such darkly humorous and Satire novels as Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies, Scoop , A Handful of Dust, and The Loved One, as well as for serious works, such as Brideshead Revisited and the Sword of Honour trilogy that clearly manifest his Catho...
(1945)

Tom Quad

Literary references

See also