Morden College

Morden College, located at 4412 St German’s Place, London, was built between 1695 and 1702 by Sir Christopher Wren. It was founded by Sir John Morden as almshouses for retired merchants who had traded with Turkey, and these continue to operate today as almshouses for needy men from the local area. The main west front is two storeys high with a basement, featuring twelve windows, and projecting two-window end wings with two windows in their inner returns. A four-bay centre section slightly projects and is topped with a pediment. The roof is hipped and tiled with laced valleys and a wooden, modillioned eaves cornice supported by keystones of the first-floor windows. The construction uses dull red brick with brighter red brick dressings. Original sash windows with glazing bars have been replaced with flush frames, set under gauged brick arches with stone keys. A stone first-floor band rises to the entablature of the central doorway, which has a rusticated stone panel. A small round-arched doorway is set within a panelled screen, featuring cherubs’ heads on the keystone, spandrels carved with fruit and flowers between columns and an entablature. A segmental pediment above the doorway bears the coat of arms flanked by swags, with tiny round windows in the curves of the swags. Within the pediment's tympanum are statues of the Founder and his Wife in round arched niches, flanked by scrolls, and rendered in polychrome. A wooden bell cupola with a dome stands on the roof ridge, above a square base with a clock face, topped with a vane. The inner returns of the wings feature doorways with strongly projecting, carved, scrolled brackets on brick pilasters, supporting shell hoods. The inner quadrangle is arranged in nine by eleven bays, featuring a similar roof with a modillioned eaves cornice and three early 19th-century dormers. Segmental pediments are situated on flat pilasters oriented along an east-west axis, and triangular ones on north-south axes. The walls and first-floor windows mirror those of the exterior. On the ground floor, alternating small sash windows and doors are set within stout moulded frames. A sundial featuring baroque borders and inscribed with the date 1695 and the phrase "sic umbra sic vita" is set against the north roof ridge, adjacent to a chimney. A colonnade of Roman Doric columns with a continuous entablature runs along the ground floor of the east side, leading to a small, single-cell, barrel-vaulted chapel. The chapel is dominated by a high, carved reredos, divided into three segmental pediments, with arms in garlands above the side pediments. A centre broken pediment holds the Royal Arms in a garland. A high pulpit stands within the chapel, complete with a heavy carved and inlaid tester. Ancillary buildings are located to the north and south.