Oxford is an architectural disaster because the colleges keep cannibalising each other.

The University has, over a millennium, had a couple hundred colleges and halls. There are now 45.

A thread.

A lot of colleges began their life by taking over the grounds and buildings of defunct colleges or halls. Trinity College rose from the ruins of Durham. Exeter moved into the gap left by Stapledon. Jesus was founded from the remains of White.

Wadham took over the land left by Austin Friars. Balliol purportedly began as Burnell's Inn, which is how they argue that they're the oldest college but I'm not getting into that fight.

Sometimes a failed hall would simply be absorbed into another, already existing one. St Bernard's was sucked into St Johns. St Mary's Hall became a part of Oriel, which was somewhat inevitable given that Oriel had been creeping up behind them for several centuries.

If a large college failed, it might get torn apart and absorbed by several others. Trilleck's Inn got split between New College, St Peters, and Balliol.

St Mary's College, (not to be confused with St Mary's Hall, the College of St Mary Magdalen, the New College of St Mary's, or the House of the Blessed Mary commonly known as Oriel College), was divided between Oriel, New, and Brasenose.

Broadgate went partially to Pembroke and partially to Brasenose, which made sense at the time but is funny now because the modern colleges are like 1/4 mile apart.

New Inn Hall was taken over completely by Balliol in the 15th century, but I guess in the late 19th they decided that was a bit excessive, so they carved a chunk off and gifted it to St Peter's. New Inn Hall has no relation to New College.

Rose Hall was initially acquired by New College, but again, I guess they needed to make friends so at some point they donated it to St Peter's, who were definitely the winners in that situation.

In the early 13th? century, two halls (Whitefriars and St Abban's) both went under, and were combined into a new college- Gloucester. Gloucester failed a century later, and Worcester College was founded on the remains, except for a chunk that got bitten off by Merton.

Still with me? This is where it starts to get complicated. You see, sometimes colleges re-use names.

There was once a Magdalen Hall. It went defunct, and was absorbed by St Swithun's College. A few decades later, this guy Waynflete founded a new Magdalen Hall. He promptly decided that wasn't grand enough, and a decade later, suppressed it into his newly founded Magdalen College.

He also founded a Magdalen School. Magdalen College grew, and and as it grew, it took over, with varying levels of civility, Magdalen School, St Swithuns, and also St Johns Hospital for good measure.

A new Magd School arose across the road. MEANWHILE, on the other side of town, three Halls (Arthur, Black, and Catte (lol)) went under, and were coalesced into Hart Hall. Hart eventually went under, and was replaced with Hartford College.

Hartford College died, so somebody (not naming names) decided to found a college on the site. They named it.... Magdalen Hall.

Which eventually went extinct, to be replaced by the modern Hertford College. I'm sorry.

Since we're speaking about civility, though, it's worth mentioning that sometimes colleges absorb ones that... haven't exactly died yet.

My own dear Oriel is probably the worst at this, as they have (so far) taken over: Bedel, St Mary's Hall, St Mary's College, St Martin's, Tackley's Inn, Perilous College (shoulda kept that name honestly), and, of course, La Oriole.

Crunchy would've won, except that they really just destroyed colleges to take their property, including but not limited to Oseney, Littlemore, Rewley, and Canterbury, as well as St Frideswides' Priory.

Architecturally, though, Brasenose wins. They have chunks from: Haberdasher, Glass, Black, Little St Edmund, Staple, St Thomas', Shield, Ivy, St Mary's, Salisbury, and Broadgates, and they're making moves at Lincoln but you didn't hear that from me.

Because, obviously, sometimes a college takes a bite out of another one and they, uh, both survive. It's awkward.

New, in addition to replacing Hammer Hall, also took bites outta Merton and Queens.

The most infamous, though, is Keble. Keble was founded from the remains of Charlesey Hall, but they also 'borrowed' a hefty portion from St John's. St John's has not forgiven them, and quite frankly, neither Pevsner nor I can blame them.

An honourable mention needs to be given here to LMH, which, although they didn't steal these buildings, has two buildings named, respectively, 'Old Old Hall' and 'New Old Hall', which is just glorious.

Anyways, just last year, the first new college in nearly 30 years was founded. Reuben College has yet to destroy any other college, but I wish them the best of luck.

I actually wanted to provide photos for all of these but there's a plague on, but I MIGHT have enough to do a full exposé of the House of the Blessed Mary the Virgin in Oxford, commonly called Oriel College, of the Foundation of Edward the Second of etc https://twitter.com/vgan15/status/1319694368270213125?s=20

Anyways, Oriel! You can go on a virtual tour here if you want to follow along.
https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/colleges/college-virtual-tours/oriel-college-virtual-tour

Otherwise, here is an annotated map that I will be referring to. You will recall that Oriel absorbed Bedel, St Mary's, other St Mary's, St Martins, Tackleys, Perilous, Oriole

That blue circle, top left, is Tackley's! Looks like this from the High. The ground floor is leased out as shops; remaining floors are graduate accommodation. They can only be accessed from inside the Island Quad.

Tackley's is, I think, the only remaining medieval college hall still in use as such in Oxford. Don't quote me on that. Anyways it has a glorious medieval stone vaulted cellar which I have photos of SOMEWHERE but can't find them rn.

The red circle was part of St Mary's College. When it died, it became part of St Mary's Hall.

When St Marys was absorbed in 1902, the High Street range was pulled down and replaced with a new build, which is largely regarded as a terrible decision. Not just because it has a statue of Rhodes, but because it looks like this.

Luckily, between the red and green circles, some old bits of St Mary's survived. They look like this. Dolls House on the left, old St Marys on the right. You can see how all the buildings just... don't quite fit together.

Okay we're going to ignore the green for a moment and skip to the purple and orange at the bottom. Those were, respectively, La Oriole and St Martin's. Again, the original buildings were replaced (mid 17th century), but the weird layout survived. Look at the angles.

La Oriole is believed to have been named after a large bay (oriel) window- this is reflected in the new building. But where St Martin's and Oriole would have collided, in the corner, the range overlaps and cuts itself off.

Fun fact, the chaplain's rooms are in that corner staircase and there's a hidden door with a direct passage from the Chaplain's rooms to the Chapel balcony ANYWAYS

So... the green. That is Bedel Hall. *takes a deep breath* It is now the library. Erm. I dunno how to really explain this.

Basically, when Oriel built its library, (now the senior library), Bedel and St Marys were still independent. So Oriel backed its library up to Bedel Hall and its chapel. It's a very nice building that closed off the second quad.

And then Oriel acquired Bedel, and needed to expand their library, so they just... idk? Did this? That's the Hall and Chapel of Bedel which are now full of books. It gets worse.

See, at this time, St Mary's was still around, so the other side of Bedel... is like this.

That isn't a trick of a camera angle. They just mashed them together.

And THEN, okay. See. They needed more library space. So they took all the other Bedel Buildings, closed off the outside doors, and cut internal doorways. They built a warren.

I couldn’t find a floor plan and i have been looking for YEARS, so I drew you an awful photo.

I did count once and there are six distinct floors to the library, none of which line up normally with another one. people get lost in there.

The lights are motion detected which means if it's four am, only the light by you will be on, which is a great way to traumatise a porter by accident. it's a nightmare on multiple levels and I love it so, SO much. bless oriel library. it's a haven of chaos.

So, that's Oriel. If you look back at the map, I circled four fun bits in black. Bottommost- that's the Grade I listed cat flap.

Directly above that, you have the tunnel under the road that connects the Island to the rest of the college. Because why not. To the left, on the bottom, you have what is now the Harris Lecture theatre, but used to be Charles I's tennis court. yes, seriously.

That final black circle? That's Narnia, and I will provide no further information.