5 – 7 September 2025
Vic Soc President Griff Rhys Jones to address members
Reverend Canon Professor William Whyte to give lecture at Keble College
Keble College Oxford showing the North Quad. Photo: James Hughes.
The Victorian Society, the national charity that campaigns for Victorian and Edwardian buildings and structures, is this year gathering in Oxford for its AGM and weekend of events. The weekend offers the Society the opportunity to report on and celebrate its work over the course of the last year, and spend the subsequent weekend experiencing the great richness and quality of Oxford’s remarkable C19 and early C20 built environment.
The Society’s President Griff Rhys Jones OBE will join the Victorian Society Chair James Grierson and the Society’s Director James Hughes at Keble College for the AGM on Friday afternoon. Reverend Canon Professor William Whyte (St John’s College) will give a lecture on Friday evening entitled Oxford and the Victorian Church in Keble’s O’Reilly Theatre, followed by a reception and dinner in the college’s magnificent hall for the Society’s members. Around 100 tickets are available to the public for the lecture – tickets can be booked on Eventbrite, proceeds from which support the Society’s vital work.
Victorian Society Director, James Hughes said:
Oxford has one of the richest and most remarkable collections of Victorian and Edwardian buildings in the UK, and the exciting programme we have devised for the weekend will showcase it wonderfully. We have also sought to provide entry to spaces that are not ordinarily open to the public, giving members unique, exclusive access to some of Oxford’s better hidden treasures. It promises to be a hugely memorable weekend.”
Saturday will take in the Oratory, where a recent scheme of conservation has uncovered murals by Gabriel Pippet, now revealed and restored for the first time since the 1950s. The tour will then take in the remarkable chapel at Pusey House, designed by Temple Moore, the Martyrs’ Memorial and the church of St Mary Magdalene, which was restored and extended by George Gilbert Scott in the 1840s. The party will then proceed to Balliol College, principally to see the Butterfield chapel, as well as significant work there by Waterhouse and Blore. A day of highlights will finish at T. G. Jackson’s memorable Examination Schools.
Sunday’s programme will be built around a visit to Exeter College to see Scott’s extraordinary chapel and his recently refurbished library. Lunch will be served in the Hall at Exeter, where William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones dined whilst students at Oxford in the 1850s. Attendees will be given access to the recently restored chapel of Harris Manchester College, which has a complete set of fine glass designed by Morris and Burne-Jones. The weekend will conclude with a visit to Oxford’s seminal Museum.
The chapel at Exeter College, on the north side of the main quadrangle, which the Society will visit during its AGM Weekend. Grade II*, 1856-59, George Gilbert Scott. Photo: James Hughes.
