R,CHARD MONCKTON MILNES was born in the year - OUDL Home

Oxford in the 'Seventies 213and so forth. And though all this too is now in turn asdead as Queen Philippa or Queen Anne, a great expansionof Oxford came on with the 'eighties—not only extendingthe area but reconstructing the core and corpus of Cityand University. Never was there, of course, a decade inthe history of Oxford when some building was not toward.The 'sixties—not to go back beyond living memory—hadwitnessed the erection of gaunt Veneto-Gothic buildingsin 'The Parks' for the Sciences, and in 'The Meadows'for lucky denizens of' The House', from plans illuminated—as was whispered—by The Seven Lamps of Architecture.But since the erection of the Martyrs' Memorial in 1841the leading mediaevalist in Oxford's architectural experimentshad been the first Sir Gilbert Scott, whoserather heavy digit may be traced in the Libraries ofUniversity and Exeter, and in the Broad Street andHolywell fronts of Exeter and New College respectively.Scott also inaugurated the restorations in Christ Churchduring the early 'seventies, some features of which provokedthe whimsical wit of 'Lewis Carroll'—that merrymathematician—into printed sallies of now bibliopolistrarity. But no architect, in the living legend of Oxfordbuilding, has had so free a hand and so full a favour asSir Thomas Jackson,,whose victorious career was sealedby the commission for the New Schools, the discussionover which bulked large throughout the 'seventies. Themost important Collegiate building of the decade wasButterfield's variegated elevation of Keble College inbrick, which marked a new departure for College idealsin more than an architectural sense. The rebuilding ofBalliol in stone (by Waterhouse) at least conformed tolocal tradition, even if economy dictated the addition ofan extra storey (as previously at Exeter and at NewCollege)—an example which once set and copied,threatens to darken the streets of Oxford with collegiate