Chapel
Our Chapel welcomes all members of College as well as families and friends.
A warm and friendly welcome
The ethos of the chaplaincy is warm and friendly and seeks to provide a focus for the spiritual life of the whole College community.
Chapel events are inclusive and gather students and staff with diverse perspectives on matters of faith without assuming any particular denominational affiliation. The Chapel is open all day and is a place where you can light a candle, offer prayers or simply take time out in stillness and peace. It is a holy space where we can enter into the search for meaning, comfort and rest.
Our Chaplain
Wadham College Chaplain, Jane Baun
Revd Dr Jane Baun
Tel: +44 (0)1865 277905
Email: chaplain@wadham.ox.ac.uk
The Chaplain’s office is Room 3.1, located opposite the chapel.
Term Card
Our Choir
Tom Hammond-Davies, Director of Music
The Chapel Choir, and choral sacred music, play an important part in the strong Chapel community that exists at Wadham.
Our Choir is a mixed, auditioned choir that sings at weekly Sunday services during term. It is made up of people from many faiths and none, but its members are necessarily sympathetic with the Anglican tradition. In addition to leading hymns, the choir performs a varied range of sacred music from every era.
Led by Tom Hammond-Davies, Director of Music at Wadham, the choir rehearses at 4:30pm every Sunday in weeks 1-8 of term for Evensong at 6pm. There is also a weekly rehearsal on Fridays in term at 5.30pm to 7pm. Anyone interested in joining the choir should contact Tom. Choir members are invited to free dinner in College after each Evensong as the College’s guest.
Music at Wadham
Wadham College Music Society
Find out more
History
Chapel
The Gothic style Chapel is part of the original College building and the original pulpit still stands. The Chapel screen, like that in the Hall, was carved by John Bolton who was paid £82 for both. Originally Jacobean woodwork ran right round the chapel but the stone altarpiece was inserted in the east end of the chapel in 1832. The magnificent east window was made by Dutchman, Bernard van Linge, for £113 in 1621, showing scenes from the Passion of Christ below their Old Testament prefigurations . Note especially Jonah and his whale (top right). Dorothy had the contract with the glazier, Robert Rudland, terminated on hearing bad reports of his Old Testament prophets on the North (left) of the chapel. The name of the glazier for the more successful depiction of Christ and the Apostles on the south side of the chapel is unknown.
Ante Chapel
In the ante chapel, the elegant young man reclining on his monument is Sir John Portman, baronet, who died in 1624 as a nineteen-year old undergraduate. Another monument, in the form of a pile of books, commemorates Thomas Harris, one of the College Fellows appointed at its foundation who died in 1614, aged 20. The Chapel organ dates from the 1877. It is one of the few instruments by Henry Willis, the doyen of Victorian English organ builders, to survive without substantial modification of its tonal design. Another Wadham architect, Christopher Wren, may have given the clock in 1671, from which only the clock face, in the quad, still survives.