STATION ON THE POLDING WALK 3 : saint john's college at the university of sydney

Interior of the Chapel of Saint John's CollegeImage: website of Saint John's College.

The Third Station on the forthcoming Polding Walk is the College of Saint John the Evangelist, within the University of Sydney.  This Catholic College was established by an Act of NSW Colonial Parliament in December 1857 as a tertiary institution within the recently completed University of Sydney.  The college was the enterprise of Archbishop Polding and his Coadjutor, Bishop Charles Henry Davis (who died in 1854 before the College was established), who wished to extend the principles of Benedictine monastic formation into Australian tertiary education.

Several architects were associated with the construction of this complex of buildings, but the adopted plans were drawn-up by William Wilkinson Wardell in 1859 and based on similar institutions in Cambridge and Oxford.  In its earliest form, the College was " T " shaped.  The Chapel, which is accessed from within the College, has the peculiarity of being on the second storey of the lateral wing.  In its compactness and mostly in its original form, it is one of the delights of Gothic Revival in Australia.

In the Great Hall (directly opposite the Chapel) hangs the famed 1866 portrait of Archbishop Polding, painted by Eugene Montague Scott.

During the Polding Walk, the hour of Sext will be celebrated in the Chapel at 12.15pm, followed by luncheon.

Read more here about the history and architecture of Saint John's College.

Saint John's College, photographed in the latter years of the 19th century.
The College is shewn in its original form, before additions of the late 1930s.
Image : website of S' John's College.