Pipe Organs of England - Pipedreams - American Public Media

PAGE 58THURSDAY, 17 MAYThe College and the CathedralChrist Church College (sometimes known as TheHouse), is one of the largest constituent collegesof the University of Oxford. Like its sister college,Trinity College, Cambridge, it was traditionallyconsidered the most aristocratic college of itsuniversity. In 1525, at the height of his power,Thomas Wolsey, Lord Chancellor of England andCardinal Archbishop of York, founded CardinalCollege. He planned the establishment on amagnificent scale, but fell from grace in 1529, withthe buildings only three-quarters complete - asthey were to remain for 140 years. The collegewas refounded in 1532 as King Henry VIII’s Collegeby Henry VIII, to whom Wolsey’s property hadescheated. Then in 1546 the King, refoundedthe college as Christ Church as part of the reorganizationof the Church of England, makingthe partially-demolished Priory church the cathedral of the recently created diocese of Oxford. Major additions have been madeto the buildings through the centuries, and Wolsey’s Great Quadrangle was crowned with the famous gate-tower designed bySir Christopher Wren. To this day the bell in the tower, Great Tom, is rung 101 times at 9 p.m. Oxford time every night for the 100original scholars of the college (plus one added in 1664). Christ Church has produced thirteen British prime ministers, which isequal to the number produced by all 45 other Oxford colleges put together and more than any Cambridge college (and two shortof the total number for the University of Cambridge, fifteen). The collegeis the setting for parts of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, as wellas Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. More recently it hasbeen used in the filming of the movies of J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potterseries and also the film adaptation of Philip Pullman’s novel NorthernLights (the film bearing the title of the US edition of the book, TheGolden Compass).The cathedral was originally the church of St Frideswide’s Priory. Thesite is claimed to be the location of the abbey and relics of St Frideswide,the patron saint of Oxford, although this is debatable. The cathedral hasthe name of Ecclesia Christi Cathedralis Oxoniensis, given to it by KingHenry VIII’s foundation charter. There has been a choir at the cathedralsince 1526, when John Taverner was the organist and also master of thechoristers. Christ Church Cathedral is often claimed to be the smallestcathedral in England, and although it did once hold this distinction thereare now smaller cathedrals, as several parish churches were elevated tocathedral status in the 20th century. The nave, choir, main tower andtransepts are of the late Norman period. There are architectural featuresranging from Norman to the Perpendicular style and a large rose windowof the ten-part (i.e., botanical) type.