General view of Merton College, Oxford, 1864. Among the centenary celebrations held in the present year, that of Merton College, founded six hundred years since, is not the least interesting...The reader who is acquainted with the college annals will be reminded by its pinnacled tower and its famous library that this was the earliest home of science of a decidedly English school; and that for two centuries there was no other foundation, either in Oxford or Paris, which could at all come near it in the cultivation of the sciences...Throughout its long existence the architectural plan of the college has been maintained. It consists now, as originally, of three courts communicating with each other by vaulted archways of stone. The first or outer court comprehends the hall on the south side, the church and sacristy on the west, the entrance gateway and lodge on the north, and the wardens lodging on the east. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.