Balliol College

Historic Collections Centre

Over the centuries, Balliol has acquired a unique and outstanding collection of medieval manuscripts, many early and rare printed books and notable holdings of modern literary, scientific and political papers as well as its own extensive archives.

The college aims to bring these treasures together, for the first time, in a Historic Collections Centre which it plans to open by 2013, the 750th year of its foundation. Here, the collections will be made fully accessible to students, academics, and other interested readers, from Britain and around the world.

Balliol’s collection of more than 400 medieval manuscripts is of international significance; at its heart is the library given by William Gray (c 1414–78), described by the eminent medievalist RW Hunt as ‘by far the finest, as well as the largest, private collection to survive in England from the Middle Ages’.

Its later holdings include manuscripts by Arnold, Swinburne, Browning, Clough, and Hopkins, all of whom were members of the college; and the papers of Benjamin Jowett, Florence Nightingale, TH Green, Arnold Toynbee, Harold Nicholson, Lord Balogh and many other writers and public figures. Balliol has, in particular, the largest collection in the world of poetic manuscripts by Robert Browning.

The Centre is planned for the interior of St Cross Church, Holywell, one of the oldest buildings in Oxford, which is located next to Balliol’s graduate centre, Holywell Manor. The project has received both Listed Building Consent and Planning Permission. The Centre will provide a dignified, secular use for a building dating back to the twelfth century, which would otherwise be facing disrepair and decay.

Elements of the project include the creation of a library and working space for readers in the Nave; the installation of environmentally controlled archive storage in the north and south aisles; the provision of bookcases in the Nave for printed books; and the conservation of the church’s architectural details, including its stained glass, painted ceiling, memorials and other features.