Castle Hill House Project

Alumni and supporters responded in strikingly generous ways to the appeal for funds to help us build two new accommodation buildings, a new courtyard, a new common room and a new entrance to College. This new expansion is known collectively as Castle Bailey Quad, nodding to the site's historical and archaeological ties to the nearby Oxford Castle.

Nearly 900 donors and alumni raised close to £14m. Such extraordinary generosity allowed the College to make a transformative difference both to the feel of the College estate and our capacity to continue making a top-flight Oxford education available to talented young people irrespective of means or background.

An enormously generous match funding offer of £5m from an anonymous donor helped to inspire others to give and accelerated our rising totals. As a direct result of that wonderful gift, we are delighted that one of our two new student accommodation buildings has been named after our previous Master, Mark Damazer – a fitting tribute to the energy and vision which characterised Mark and Rosie’s nine years at St Peter’s. 

A generous gift of £5m from the Alexander Mosley Charitable Trust, in memory of Alexander Mosley, a gifted St Peter’s alumnus who died young, enabled the construction of the other accommodation building at the boundary of the new development at the New Road end. At the invitation of the Alexander Mosley Charitable Trust, the College embarked on a community naming project in the 2021-22 academic year. Current College students and employees selected the name Westfield House in honour of the women of Westfield College, London, who relocated to St Peter's during World War II. You can learn more about the naming project and the historical significance of the site names here.

This campaign has been notable as much for the support it has generated across the College community as for these foundational gifts. More than 1 in 10 of all alumni contacted have given, a participation rate that would be notable for any college. We are proud and touched that the St Peter’s community stepped forward to help in this impressive way. In referencing what has inspired them to give, donors mentioned both their recognition of the College’s very positive contribution to their own lives and their understanding of the clear need for future generations of students. We could not be more grateful: thank you all.

This was, in its very nature, a shared project in which we collectively have an investment in the future of St Peter’s: thinking about it in these shared terms has been such a pleasure and we have loved hearing from so many of you about why College matters to you. Whatever the size of your gift, we want to thank all who have joined in making it possible for the College to move forward confidently with this inspiring development project.

The buildings opened for student residents in January 2024. And, in a celebratory ribbon-cutting ceremony on 15 June 2024, St Peter’s College’s Castle Bailey Quad was officially opened by The Rt Hon the Lord Patten of Barnes, KG, CH, PC, Chancellor of the University of Oxford.