Each of the bishop's colleges took about six years in building, and that
at Oxford was the first to be finished. It must have been a proud day
for Winchester when, on March 28, 1393, the "seventy faithful boys",
headed by their master, came in procession from St. Giles's Hill, where
they had been temporarily housed, and, all chanting psalms, entered into
possession of their fair college.
The buildings have been but little altered since their founder's day,
and extend now, as then, on the south side of the Close, and along the
bank of the Itchen. They consist mainly of two quadrangles, in the first
of which, entered from College Street by a gateway, are the Warden's
house and other offices. Here is the brewhouse, quite unaltered; but the
Warden's house has absorbed the old bakehouse, slaughterhouse, and
butcher's room. Over the second archway are figures of the Virgin, with
Gabriel on her right, and Wykeham kneeling on her left. Here was a room
for the Warden, from which he could see all who entered or left the
college; and here also is the site of the old penthouse under which the
scholars used to perform their ablutions, and which they called "Moab".
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