Post-medieval Oxford - Oxford City Council

Thought to have been carved in the 17th century by Grinling Gibbons, the font is one
of only two wooden examples known in the country.
St Aldates
A series of archaeological investigations were carried out during the refurbishment of
the church in 1999. A total of 48 brick-lined shaft graves and one brick-lined vault, all
of 18th to early or mid-19th century date, were exposed in the body of the church.
(Tyler 2001).
St Cross
Building recording and a radar survey were undertaken prior to the conversion of the
church to a document library for Balliol College. Recording of features exposed by
the removal of pews and floorboards included inscribed slabs, possible grave cuts,
as well as at least two possible raised brick vaults (Forde 2009).
Christ Church Cathedral
The cathedral was established on the site of St Frideswide’s priory in 1546 and is
both a cathedral and part of the college (VCH iv: 369). Elements of the earlier church
survive within the current structure but the majority of the structure is post-medieval.
Non conformity
The Quakers
The first Quaker meeting place was located on New Inn Hall Street in the home of
the surgeon Richard Bettris from around 1654 (Kreitzer 2008: 60). The meeting place
was later moved to 63-64 St Giles in around 1687 where it remained until the mid-
19th century when the property was sold. The Quakers returned to Oxford in the 19th
century, initially building a meeting house to the rear of 60 St Giles, which was later
recorded on the early OS Oxford Town plans before the present site at 43 St Giles
was acquired in 1939 (Hardy and Munby 1993: 75).
An evaluation and subsequent watching brief in 1991 and 1992 at St Cross College,
Pusey Lane identified part of the Friends Meeting House known to have been built in
1687 and demolished in the early 20th century. A post-medieval cess pit that may
have been contemporary with the meeting house was noted. Also, a light stone
foundation, perhaps for the ‘dias’ shown on the OS map of 1878, was noted. (Hardy
and Munby 1993: 76). Archaeological investigations in 1959 recorded a number of
burials to the rear of the second Quaker site at 63-64 St Giles (UAD 363). No further
information is available from this excavation.
The first Oxford Methodist Church, visited by John Wesley in 1783, was in a 16 th
century house in New Inn Hall Street.
The college chapels
College chapels have been summarised and described in a number of general
publications (RCHM 1939; Sherwood and Pevsner 1974; Tyack 1998), and Merton
College Chapel has been discussed in more detail (Fletcher and Upton 1983). The
Chapel of Brasenose (1656-66) is notable for its re-use of the medieval hammerbeam
roof brought from St Mary’s College in New Inn Hall Street (Blair 1979). Many
college chapels have fine furnishings, woodwork, and stained glass; the two glazed
cupboards at Trinity (1690s) have Oxford’s earliest examples of sliding sash windows
(Louw 1983).
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