Oxford Colleges & Permanent Private Halls

No students, the hardest exam in the world, and Hawksmoor's twin towers

One of Oxford's oldest colleges — plain outside, historically significant inside

Right behind the Radcliffe Camera — an intimate college with a painted chapel ceiling

Oxford's grandest college — part cathedral, part palace, all spectacle

One of Oxford's smallest colleges, with a famous pelican sundial

Tolkien's college, a miniature Sainte-Chapelle, and a hidden view over Radcliffe Square

A modern graduate college wrapped around a Georgian observatory tower

Oxford's mature-student college with Burne-Jones and William Morris stained glass

Home of the Bridge of Sighs — Oxford’s most photographed architectural moment

The Welsh college on Turl Street — quieter than its neighbours, full of character

Victorian polychrome brick — Oxford's most divisive building and a masterpiece painting

Oxford's part-time and continuing education hub — not a tourist destination

Riverside gardens and pioneering history, away from the tourist crush

An eco-focused graduate college — admirable but not a visitor attraction

A perfectly preserved medieval gem on Turl Street — John Wesley's college

Extensive grounds with a deer park, river walks, and a famous tower

A Nonconformist college with a Gothic Revival chapel and progressive spirit

Oxford's oldest quad, a medieval library, and Tolkien's second home

Medieval cloisters, a stretch of city wall, and a chapel with an El Greco

Oxford's social science powerhouse — architecturally divisive, intellectually formidable

Oxford's oldest royal foundation — seven centuries on a beautiful square

Samuel Johnson's college — quietly handsome, just off St Aldate's

A tiny Baptist hall on St Giles' — small and friendly

A pioneering women's college — alumni include Thatcher, Sayers, and Indira Gandhi

A modernist campus college with a strong access ethos — not a sightseeing stop

Oxford's international affairs college — impressive seminars, not impressive buildings

Designed by Arne Jacobsen — a complete modernist campus with sculpture gardens by the Cherwell

A small graduate college sharing the Grade II-listed Pusey House on St Giles'

The oldest academic hall in any university — 800 years in a tiny quad off Queen's Lane

Oxford's last single-sex college (until 2008), with Cherwell riverside gardens

14 acres of gardens in North Oxford — one of the largest college grounds in the university

Oxford's wealthiest college — Canterbury Quad, large gardens, and serious money

A young college on an ancient site — unassuming but well located near the castle

A baroque showpiece on the High Street — Oxford's only fully classical college

Spacious gardens and a Wren chapel on Broad Street — often overlooked

Possibly Oxford's oldest college — Shelley's memorial and a long High Street facade

A well-preserved Jacobean quad, large gardens, and a progressive reputation

Isaiah Berlin's riverside graduate college — Powell & Moya's Grade II-listed modernist campus

A lake, medieval cottages, and large gardens — one of central Oxford's hidden landscapes

A Dominican hall on St Giles' — Oxford's oldest teaching tradition, refounded after a four-century gap

Oxford's Jesuit hall — and the only building Lutyens ever designed in the city

An Anglo-Catholic theological college in the former Cowley Fathers' monastery

An evangelical Anglican hall on Banbury Road — third-oldest Anglican theological college in England