COLLEGE, a public building, endowed with revenues for the education of youth and their instruction in the various branches of science and literature. An assembly of colleges constitute a university.
Our colleges consist, fm• the most part, of one or more quadrangular areas, surrounded by ranges of buildings, which comprise a house for the superior, and rooms or lodgings for the fellows, scholars, &c. ; • besides which there is always a chapel and refectory, or dining hall. Amongst our finest buildings of this class are those. of Christ Church and Merton Colleges, Oxford, which, with many others at the same university, as also at the sister institution at Cambridge, are magnificent specimens of the architecture of their respective dates.
In writing on this subject, we must not pass over in silence the foundation and erection of St. Augustine's College, Can terbury, a building which nay vie with many an older struc ture of the same kind, as well in its architectural, as its educational features.
This college comprises only one area, which is of a quad rangular form, three of its sides only being occupied with buildings, the fourth at present consists but of a wall ; but the space is intended to be built upon as occasion demands. The three sides already occupied are the north, east, and west, the curdle. on the southern side being enclosed by the wall ; of these, the buildings on the two first, the northern and eastern sides, are elevated on a raised terrace, while those on the south are on a level with the entrance. The materials employed for the walling are for the most part flint, with dressings of rag-stone, and, in other cases, rag with Caen stone dressings. The style adopted is the Decorated of the fourteenth century ; in the chapel are some parts of an earlier date, but in other respects the architecture of Edward the Third's reign predominates.
On entering under the fine old gateway on the southern side, the object which probably first attracts our attention is the long range of beautiful %vindows on our left. The long pile of on this side of the quadrangle is raised, as we before mentioned, on a broad paved walk, or terrace, and consist besides of two stories, the lower presenting, on the exterior, a series of large, closely-set windows, with interve ning buttresses ; and the upper a row of nearly double the number of windows, but of much smaller dimensions, and with larger intervening spaces. The lower windows are divided by mullions into five lights, and their arched heads are filled with tracery of good design; while the windows of the upper story are of the most simple description, being but plain lancets of one light.. This length of building is judi
ciously broken up into three parts by two stair-turrets, which give access to the apartments above ; and by a door at the side, entrance is obtained to the lower story ; one of the tur rets is used likewise for a belfry. The doors on the terrace give entrance to a long covered ambulatory, 151 feet in length, lighted by eight fine windows, which we have noticed above, and covered with a flat roof showing the timbers, with arches spanning across at intervals where required. Out of this cloister open twenty apartments for the students, of which above thirty more open into a corridor in the upper story. The arrangement of these apartments is the same throughout: they measure 15 feet by 8 feet 6 inches, and are divided by a partition into two rooms. The furniture of the rooms con sists of an iron bedstead, a fixed and compact •ashhand-stand, a fixed table, having on one side drawers for clothes, and on the other a drawer for writing materials, and above the table shelves for fixed against the wall ; an elbow-chair and two others complete the furniture. The rooms are well ven tilated, and by hot water, one of the few arrangements which we have to find fault with.
Level with these buildings, but at right angles to them, on the eastern side of the area, and detached, stands the library, perhaps the most dignified building of the whole group. Raised upon a crypt, the proportions of which are old, and the details copied and of great simplicity, is a vast apartment 78 feet long by 3!) feet broad, with massy buttressed walls, and large traceried and transomed windows, surmounted by a magnificent open roof of oak, the ridge of which is 63 feet high from the level of the terrace. A noble flight of fin ecu steps, approached by an ample arch, and contained within a porehed roof at right angles to the main pile, and lighted by mr windows, affimls a means of entranee at the southern extremity. This library is well lighted by thirteen large win dows, six on each side, and one at the north end ; they are each of timr lights, being divided vertically by a mullion, and horizontally by a transom, and have treti)iled heads. The disposition of the windows naturally divides the interior into six compartments.