St Benet's Hall, Oxford

Yellow Room, St Benet's Hall

The hall has occupied 38 and 39 St Giles since 1923. The building dates from 1830 and was constructed as two separate houses (38 and 39).[7] The site was previously part of a coster's (i.e., fruit seller's) yard and stable. In the nineteenth century, the two houses served as private homes for several Anglican clergy connected to the university and to a number of widows of independent means.

The north hall (38 St Giles) was, in 1841, occupied as the private dwelling of the Rev. Philip Bliss, Registrar of the University of Oxford and later principal of St Mary's Hall. Bliss lived there with his wife and four servants. A decade later, it was the home of the university's public orator and vice principal and later principal of Magdalen Hall, the Rev. Richard Michell. In 1874, Michell became first principal of the refounded Hertford College. After a two-year period as the Oxford High School (1879–1881), it became a private home once more, belonging briefly to Charlotte Cotton, widow of the Rev. Richard Lynch Cotton, provost of Worcester College (1881–1882). It then belonged to the Rev. S. J. Hulme, chaplain of Wadham College (1884–1887). In 1889, it served briefly as the Oxford Eye Hospital which is today part of the John Radcliffe Hospital. In 1891, it was acquired by Madame de Leobardy and opened as St Ursula's Convent, a boarding and day school for Roman Catholic girls.[7]

The south hall (39 St Giles) was the private home of Letitia Pett (1841–1846) and Maria Brown (1852–1861), both widows. It was then acquired by the Rev. Richard Greswell, tutor in theology at Worcester College, and his family (1861–1881). After his death in 1881, his widow Joanna Greswell lived in the house until 1894. The British military historian Sir Charles William Chadwick Oman, a fellow of All Souls College and the Chichele Professor of Modern History, acquired the house in 1898 and lived there until 1908. In 1909, it too was purchased by Madame de Leobardy and became an extension of the convent school next door.[7]

St Ursula's Convent School closed in 1922. Ampleforth Abbey acquired both buildings in 1923 and combined the two sections into one hall. It was the sole building of St Benet's Hall until 2015.

In 2015, St Benet's Hall acquired the villa and hall of residence owned by the Sisters of the Sacred Heart, at 11 Norham Gardens, next to University Parks and near Lady Margaret Hall in October 2015.[8] The original Victorian Gothic villa was built in 1860 and designed by William Wilkinson, who also designed the Randolph Hotel, Oxford. Norham Gardens is in an area originally known as Norham Manor and was owned by St John's College. Past occupants of 11 Norham Gardens include Henry Balfour, the first curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum, and Francis Llewellyn Griffith, the first professor of Egyptology at Oxford. Griffith's archaeological finds form the backbone of the Egyptian collections at the Ashmolean Museum.

In 1932, the Society of the Sacred Heart, a Roman Catholic order of nuns, purchased the villa. The purpose of this acquisition was to provide accommodation for women students at Oxford registered at the Society of Oxford Home-Students which later became St Anne's College. In 1951, a new wing was added as a student hostel providing 21 rooms. These rooms also accommodated women at St Anne's, which became a constituent college of the university in 1952. The association with St Anne's lessened over time and women students (mostly undergraduates) from across the university lived in the hostel, whilst the Sisters lived in the villa. By the 1990s the student population in the hostel became entirely postgraduate, housing both men and women of any faith or none. In spring 2015, the Sacred Heart Sisters decided to sell the house and hostel complex to St Benet's Hall to enable the hall to become fully co-educational by Michaelmas Term 2016.

St Benet's Hall Garden

Until 2012, the master of the hall was always a Benedictine monk. The hall retains a monastic prior as well as a chaplain, both of whom are monks. The hall now principally admits laymen and women both as undergraduates and postgraduates. While there is no requirement that members of the hall should be Catholics - and most are not - all are asked to be supportive of the monks' life and values.[9]

As St Benet's is a PPH of the university, its fellows do not constitute its governing body; but they share with the master the day-to-day running of the hall, and elect one of their number to serve as a trustee of the St Benet's Education Trust. The hall matriculates students to be members of the university, and those of its members who have matriculated are full members of the university in all ways, and are able to supplicate for degrees on the successful completion of their studies. For most of its members the only noticeable difference made by the hall's legal status is that it is very much smaller than any of the Oxford constituent colleges.

On 1 September 2012, Werner Jeanrond, formerly holder of the 1640 Chair of Divinity at the University of Glasgow, became the new master of St Benet's Hall. He was the first Catholic layman ever to run the hall. Jeanrond was a full member of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at Oxford and was engaged in both teaching and research, as well as serving as head of house.

The current subjects in which undergraduate students are admitted by St Benet's are Theology, Philosophy and Theology, Theology and Oriental Studies, History, History and Politics, History and Economics, Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), Classics, Classics with Oriental Studies, Oriental Studies (Egyptology; Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Islamic Studies, Hebrew Studies, and Jewish Studies), Oriental Studies with Classics, and Human Science.[10] The hall admits graduate students from the same subjects as undergraduates as well as those studying at the Blavatnik School of Government, the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, and the Saïd Business School.

Refectory

Unlike other Colleges and PPHs, St Benet's has a Joint Common Room (JCR) of which all students at the hall are members.[9] The JCR has its own committee.[11] The JCR is responsible for running the St Benet's bar and gym facilities.

Coat of arms of Ampleforth Abbey

St Benet's Hall uses the same Coat of Arms of Ampleforth Abbey and Ampleforth College, but, like the College, without the abbot's crozier and galero (ecclesiastical hat with tassels). The arms were granted to the Abbey by the English College of Arms in 1922. The abbey made the application to the College of Arms to regularise its armorial position as the lineal descendant of Westminster Abbey. The purpose of this move was to conform to proper authority and thus not be open to the charge of lack of consideration for post-Reformation bodies already bearing variants of the Westminster arms in their own line of heraldic descent.

The Pre-Reformation City of Westminster sometimes used a red shield with two keys in saltire to symbolise Saint Peter to whom its Abbey Church was dedicated. In addition, Westminster also used a blue shield with a gold “cross flory” between five gold martlets (heraldic birds). This forms the attributed arms of St Edward the Confessor (reign 1042–1066), the last Anglo-Saxon king of England, who is regarded as the principal patron and founder of Westminster Abbey. Both these arms appear in the chief (top portion) of the shield. The base (lower portion) of the shield is gold and blue divided “dancetté” (by a zigzag line). This represents the arms of the pre-Reformation Abbots of Westminster who would place their personal coat of arms in the top portion (chief) of the shield. The last Benedictine Abbot of Westminster to use this coat of arms was John Feckenham (c. 1515–1584) who was removed from office by Elizabeth I in 1560 at the final suppression of the Abbey. The abbey church then became known as the Collegiate Church of St Peter, Westminster, which remains its official name to this day.

The present shield of Ampleforth Abbey, Ampleforth College, and St Benet's Hall is thus a combination of three shields – the first representing St Peter (top left), the second representing St Edward the Confessor (top right), and the bottom representing the pre-Reformation Benedictine Abbots of Westminster.

The heraldic blazon of the arms is as follows: Per fesse dancetté Or and Azure a chief per pale Gules and of the second charged on the dexter with two keys in saltire Or and Argent and on the sinister with a Cross Flory between five martlets of the first.

Although not official, the motto associated with the hall is Ausculta, O fili, praecepta magistri which translates as "Listen, O [my] son, to the precepts of [thy] master." This is taken from the Latin original of the opening line of the prologue to the Rule of St. Benedict.

Hall chapel

The following grace is said in Latin before every formal hall, which at St Benet's is held on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. It is said by the master or a person he designates. In addition, after grace, an undergraduate student reads a short passage from the Rule of St Benedict in English.

Hall Library

Gratiarum actio ante cibum

Benedic Domine,

nos et haec tua dona

quae de tua largitate sumus sumpturi,

per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen

Grace before the meal

Bless us, O Lord,

and these thy gifts

which we are about to receive from thy bounty,

through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Grace after the meal is said in Latin after formal hall by the chaplain in the following form:

Gratiarum actio post cibum

Agimus tibi gratias,

omnipotens Deus,

pro universis beneficiis tuis,

qui vivis et regnas in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Grace after the meal

We give thee thanks,

O almighty God,

for all thy benefits,

who livest and reignest for ever and ever. Amen.

• English Benedictine Congregation

• Wansbrough, Henry; Marett-Crosby, Anthony (ed.), Benedictines in Oxford (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1997). ISBN 0-232-52176-X; ISBN 978-0-232-52176-4.

• University of Oxford: St Benet's Hall
• St Benet's Hall
• St Benet's Hall Boat Club