New College Oxford, The Cloisters No.2

New College was founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, and was known as the ‘St. Mary College of Winchester in Oxford’ Building was started on land just inside the north walls of the city in 1380. The college is a model for collegiate architecture as for the first time a college in Oxford was designed as a single group of buildings. The master mason William Wynford is credited as responsible for the design.
The building of the cloisters was begun in 1390 and dedicated in 1400 as a place for the burial of junior members. With its Gothic tracery, buttresses and painted timber roof, the cloisters are a quiet but vivid reminder of the college’s medieval origins. The west front of the Chapel can be seen behind the cloisters. To build the cloisters inside the walls and next to the chapel meant that New College Lane, which was originally straight, had to be diverted. This accounts for its present day twists and turns.