Excavations in anticipation of building work at the Frewin Hall complex of Brasenose College here in Oxford have revealed some more of the foundations of St Mary’s College. This was a house for Augustinian canons who were students at the University and was founded in 1435. One resident in the early sixteenth century was Desiderius Erasmus, who was an Augustinian canon, whilst he was studying in Oxford. St Mary’s did not survive the dissolution of the monasteries, closing in 1541. Unfortunately its buildings did not, unlike those of other monastic colleges - Durham College, Gloucester College, Canterbury College and St Bernard’s College - find a new role as an educational foundation. The four I mentioned are now, respectively, Trinity, Worcester, part of Christ Church and St John’s.
Part of the site of St Mary’s was excavated some years ago and the foundations preserved under a knit garden in the grounds of Frewin Hall and adjacent to the Debating Chamber of the Oxford Union. There is a plan of these in the History of the University of Oxford vol.ii. A portion of the gatehouse on to New Inn Hall Street is all that survives that is visible to the passing visitor, although Frewin Hall itself retains a splendid twelfth century vaulted basement.
There is report about the latest discovery on the MailOnline website at Remains of Oxford University's 'lost college' are DISCOVERED though one must ask where do they get reporters from who can write that Cardinal Wolsey was executed…
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