Please note that the tour times for this venue have been updated since the printed programme was produced.

Join a guided tour of Pembroke’s charming quads, dating from the 15th to the 21st century, and explore over 400 years of stories held within our walls.

John Betjeman, the famous Poet Laureate, author and broadcaster, and a former secretary of the Oxford Preservation Trust, wrote of Pembroke:

How empty, creeper grown and odd

Seems lonely Pembroke’s second quad

Still when I see it do I wonder why 

That College so polite and shy

Should have more character than Queen’s

Or Univ, splendid in the High.

The College was founded in 1624 from what had been Broadgates Hall, an academic hall for law students existing since the 13th century. In 1624 King James I signed the letters patent to create the present college, which was named after the 3rd Earl of Pembroke, Lord Chamberlain and Chancellor of the University.

Guided tours will start with the Old Quad, which was built over the remainder of the 17th century with Broadgates Hall in its North-West corner. Its colourful window boxes give it a character and charm distinctive from other Oxford quads. In the corner you will see the recently unveiled memorial to JRR Tolkien, who spent 20 years at the College as Professor of Anglo-Saxon, during which time he wrote The Hobbit and much of Lord of the Rings. The quad was also home to Pembroke’s most famous alumnus, dictionary-writing Samuel Johnson, who took up residence above the main gateway in 1728.

The tour will then take you into Chapel Quad to see the richly decorated 18th-century Chapel, the 19th-century Dining Hall, and then on to the unassuming North Quad which encompasses the now closed Beef Lane and the ‘other side’ of the 17th and 18th-century houses on Pembroke Street.

On the south side of Chapel Quad sits a bridge built over the medieval city wall and Brewer Street to connect our newest development, the 21st-century Rokos Quad. Housed here is the collection of medals and trophies awarded to Sir Roger Bannister, famous for breaking the 4-minute mile at Iffley Track in 1954 and who was Master of the College from 1985-93.

The College will be open for guided tours only. Tour times will be advertised online in advance. Spaces are limited (20 people per tour) and will be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis. Tours approx. 30-40 minutes.

• Disabled access: Full step-free wheelchair access and accessible toilets. Assistance dogs welcome. No hearing loop or sign language interpretation
• Toilets available