University of Oxford Chancellor officially opens Castle Bailey Quad

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. 

The College estate took on a festive feel as students led tours of the new buildings, Fellows gave mini-talks, and alumni enjoyed an exhibition illustrating the incremental development of the College site.

In her speech to mark the opening of the new buildings, Professor Judith Buchanan paid tribute to those who had supported the new development and reflected on what it will deliver for current and future students of the College: 

‘These beautiful new buildings, sensitively embedded in this newly expanded College site and built to tip-top environmental credentials, are already making a step-change difference to what we can offer to our students. We have could not be more grateful for the ways in which past generations of the College have contributed to ensure that future generations of the College can be well supported during their student days, and well equipped in due course to go out into the world to make their own thoughtful, bold and creative contribution. This ambitious new development provides an attractive, safe and convenient alternative to the private rental market that has proved so challenging for so many of our students. Thank you to all those who have given so generously to make this possible.’   

Being a city-centre college means that opportunities for expansion and development do not come up very often. However, in 2018, an unprecedented chance for growth arose when St Peter’s College acquired a neighbouring plot of land. The College launched an ambitious campaign to develop the site into Passivhaus-standard buildings designed by Design Engine Architects, complete with 54 en-suite student rooms, new kitchens, a spacious common room and enhanced outdoor spaces.  

In 2021, the College received planning permission and contractors Willmott Dixon broke ground on the site. In January 2024, the buildings were opened for residence and the first group of students moved into their new rooms in Westfield House and Damazer House. With Castle Bailey Quad, the College has reached a new milestone in the amount of accommodation it can offer to students. It remains a strategic priority for St Peter’s to be able to offer three years of guaranteed accommodation to undergraduates. Castle Bailey Quad does not yet enable the College to deliver fully on that aspiration but it increases the accommodation portfolio of the College very significantly in welcome ways. Crucially, up to half of all second years (all of whom previously lived out of College) now have the opportunity to live in College rather than renting private housing.

The Chancellor congratulated the St Peter’s College community on its historic achievement as he prepared to cut the ribbon on the new development. He was joined on the stage by Lady Lavender Patten, Mark Damazer CBE (Master of St Peter’s, 2010 - 2019), Emeritus Fellow of History Prof Henry Mayr-Harting, 102-year-old alumnus Michael Tibbs (Geography, 1946), and current students Afomia and Ben. 

Following the ribbon-cutting, Director of Music Quintin Beer and members of the St Peter’s Choir performed a specially commissioned new choral work, ‘Bailey’ by alumnus Piers Connor Kennedy (Music, 2010), the setting of a poem by alumnus Rob Yates (English, 2010):

Bailey

Held by new and ancient walls,
these stones that shape our space –
our yesterdays, each thought we’ve traced and lost, the shifting winds –
we bring them, and they bring us, to this place. 

A keep and those it harbours
are formed of many grains –
star-borne, sea-scrubbed, pressed by the weathering globe and finally here –
receiving new impressions from the rain. 

This bailey is our refuge,
a house for weaving dreams,
a moated field where minds collect and bloom before the world,
a place to grow and breathe before the stream

propels us forward, ever
branching, to futures spun
from now, and through them all these walls hold us in mind. Castle
and quad. A blessèd pause. Our inner sun. 

From here we flow and weather,
fresh stone for shaping space –
new worlds, old dreams, near-miracles of form, whatever’s there –
we’ll bring them, and they’ll bring us, to this place. 

The St Peter's College Foundation gave generous support to help make the Opening Celebration festivities possible.