page_title: Chapel of Brasenose College, Oxford
section_title: Preliminary
hierarchical_section_title: Chapel of Brasenose College, Oxford / Construction / Preliminary
context_page_description: The Chapel of Brasenose College, Oxford, dedicated to St Hugh and St Chad, was built during the seventeenth century, during Brasenose's second wave of building started under the Principalship of Samuel Radcliffe. It is believed to have replaced an earlier chapel where the Senior Common Room now is, and includes items of silverware from around the date of foundation. The chapel is in a mixture of architectural styles – Gothic, neoclassical, and baroque – and has not proven uncontroversial for this reason. The current chaplain is The Reverend Julia Baldwin.
  Radcliffe having failed to start work during his lifetime, his will set aside money and instructions for the construction of the new chapel on the south side of the college. For this purpose materials were taken from college properties – particularly from St Mary's College, which provided the hammerbeam roof and other materials for the project. The chapel and library cost together £4,000 at a time when college income was £600 a year. Disputes over the will and other problems meant that work on the construction did not begin until 1656, and was managed by the college bursar.
context_section_description: Having failed to achieve all his aims during his lifetime, in his will, read 24 April 1648, Radcliffe directs his executors:
  to sell Piddington within 1 year, give one years profits to the poor of Rochdale. This should return £1500, of which £1000 to the Chapel, & the material of the Coll. tenement by the Starre, to make the south side of the Quadrangle, £600 for a building on pillars betw. Mr. Sixsmiths Chamber & the Small Hall of Edmund; this will make a walk under cover the great want of Brasenose.
  "The Coll. tenement by the Starre" refers to St. Mary's College, situated to the west of Cornmarket Street, on the site of which Frewin Hall now stands; "the Starre" is now the site of the Clarendon Centre (once the Clarendon Hotel).
  The college, accordingly, set to work to carry out the Principal's wishes. The sale of Piddington realized £1,850, two other legacies of £66 13s. 4d. and £15 respectively came in, and a subscription list shows that money continued to be given from time to time up to November 1671, when the total sum subscribed amounted to £4,775 4s. 4d. As well these legacies and subscriptions in cash, the college possessed a very valuable asset in the shape of the old buildings of St. Mary's College, which helped to keep costs down. This property was acquired in 1580 and in 1584 was let with the proviso that any unroofed buildings might be pulled down whenever required. In 1628, two masons and two carpenters viewed the buildings and other accessories which had been erected since it came into the hands of the college, and valued them at £1,480. Whether the college had any designs as to the ultimate fate of the chapel belonging to St. Mary's College before 1649 is unclear, but by this time its destruction was certainly planned, for the site was let to one John Kinge of the Inner Temple, reserving the right to "enter in with workmen and labourers, carts and horses, to pull down the old Chapel, and to carry away the materials to build the new Chapel according to the intencion of the last will and testament of Samuel Radcliffe". Even if a site for the new buildings had not been prescribed in the will, there would have been no difficulty in finding one. The college had rented since 1530 and now finally acquired both Little St. Edmund Hall and the large piece of garden separating it from William Smyth's buildings, a plot well suited for the formation of a small quadrangle, with a "covered walk" on one side. The chapel could very well take the place of St. Edmund Hall itself, then to be pulled down, and be connected with the rest of the college by the cloister or covered walk, to which the Principal attached so much importance.
  Both money and land, then, being provided, there seemed no reason why the work should not begin at once. Owing to various delays however, caused by disputes over the will, the sale of  Piddington, the transfer of the site, and for various other reasons, an actual start was not made until 1656, so that eight years elapsed after the Principal's death before the preliminaries were all finally settled and operations could commence. The interval was employed in collecting timber and other material; when once begun, work went steadily forward without intermission until the chapel was close to complete. Preparations began soon after Principal Radcliffe's death, in 1651, when the selection and felling of timber in Mynchery Wood, the property of the college, was undertaken. The Bursar saw to this himself, and records his expenses: "given [that] day when I went to viewe [the] tymber to [the] 2 woodmen for their care 4s. and to [the] 6 workmen to drink 3s." Further items are given for felling and carting, and for sawing up at the college. By 9 July 1651 the last load of timber was drawn in, and all the carters received a "dinar and beverage bringing home [the] last timber from [the] woods to [the] college". Workmen's compensation is not forgotten: "to [the] poore man [that] had his leg broken in plucking down a tree 5s." In addition to all this, £84 was paid to Sir George Stonehouse for timber bought outr
caption: Samuel Radcliffe (d.1651), Principal. Arms: Argent, a bend engrailed sable with a mullet for difference. He failed to start work on the chapel during his lifetime; construction began eight years after his death.
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