Trinity College main gates
Most of Trinity College is hidden away behind these gates: it does not show its buildings on the street like its neighbour Balliol (which has the longest façade of any Oxford college).
The gates are jointly Grade II listed (List Entry No. 1046621) with the neighbouring cottages. They were given to the college by Lord North in 1737, but the piers, which are copies of those in the garden, date only from 1889. The college chapel, built in 1691–4, can be seen through the gates.
The photograph below (Historic England HT05763) shows this gate from the inside in 1885:
Jackson’s Oxford Journal reported on 17 October 1885:
The high railings on either side of the Broad-street gateway have been taken down, and a wall about six feet in height, with an ornamental stone coping, is being built, but the original gateway still exists, and judging from the dressed stonework upon each flank it is difficult to say whether a new gateway will be erected, as the width is considerably greater, or whether additional ironwork will be built up to it.
The latter appears to have been done, and on 16 October 1886 the newspaper announced that the ornamental iron gates had been placed in position.
Below: these gates photographed by Henry Taunt in 1898:
Below: Walter Scott postcard showing these cottages and the adjoining gate of Trinity College,
probably dating from around 1920
