Trinity College, Oxford

My husband and I recently had dinner with the priest who was Newman Center Chaplain when we were in college--and who concelebrated our wedding Mass. We traveled with him several years ago on trips to Rome and to London and we started talking about another trip to London. As my husband well knows, just talking about traveling encourages me to start planning a trip. There are lots of sights to see in London, and I've made a list, but we also like to plan day trips by train. We talked about returning to Oxford.

One place to visit there is Trinity College, founded by Thomas Pope in 1555 on the site of Durham College, where the monks from Durham studied before the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Mary I and Philip of Spain gave Thomas Pope the patents and approvals to found The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity. He intended the students and fellows of the college to remember him and his wife in prayers and Masses after their deaths. Of course, that purpose was never fulfilled because by the time the college was built, Elizabeth I had come to the throne and the Church of England would soon take over.

The College is located on Broad Street, next to Blackwell's Bookstore (in the photo above) and the White Horse pub! It is open to visitors from 10 to 12 and 14-16 Monday through Friday with a nominal entrance charge.

Famous students of Trinity are Cecil Calvert, the 2nd Lord Baltimore and Governor of Maryland, A.E.W. Mason, the novelist, and of course, Blessed John Henry Newman. The College sent representatives to the Mass of Beatification on September 19. Trinity College honored Newman in 1878 as an Honorary Fellow, the year before he received the Cardinal's hat from Pope Leo XIII.

Jay Gatsby said he attended Trinity in Fitzgerald's novel.