Radley Hall

Radley Hall is a country house, now part of St. Peter's College, built between 1721 and 1727 by William Townsend and Bartholomew Peisley for Sir John Stonhouse. The house is constructed of Flemish bond red brick with a limestone ashlar plinth, limestone ashlar storey bands, quoins, and dressings. It has a shallow-pitched lead roof and brick internal stacks.

The house follows a double-depth plan and is of early Georgian style, with three storeys and a nine-window front of 2:5:2 fenestration. The projecting outer bays feature restored pilaster quoins with chamfered edges. The front entrance has 20th-century double leaf doors with a late 18th-century Neo-classical fanlight, set within a keyed round-arched doorway. This doorway is adorned with a Doric entablature and base, sunk into a rusticated surround with a triglyph frieze, and has a segmental-arched sash window with engaged brick columns and curved shoulders above. Gauged brick round arches are over the ground-floor six-pane sashes, with flat arches above, and shorter attic sashes. Plain stone string courses support a deep moulded cornice with console brackets.

The rear elevation is similar in style but features a 3:3:3 fenestration with central projecting bays. A central sash window is set within an eared stone architrave, above a simpler doorcase with brackets to the entablature. The five-bay side walls echo this style, with pilaster quoins flanking the central bay. Original 18th-century lead rainwater heads are present. Cloister walks are attached to the right side of the building.

The interior retains some early 19th-century detailing and evidence of late 19th-century alterations. The hall features an 18th-century panelled dado, a late 19th-century fireplace, an early 19th-century cornice, and early 18th-century round-arched entries with panelled reveals to the staircases. These are fine dog-leg staircases with landing balconies, featuring alternating fluted and turned balusters on an open string. The staircase on the right is more elaborately detailed, with a panelled dado and landings featuring tall round-arched entries to rooms and a Corinthian-modillioned cornice. A first-floor room to the left has an early 19th-century cornice and fireplace with Doric columns. A ground-floor rear room was opened out in the late 19th century and contains late 17th-century panelling from Merton College, and early 17th-century panelling and carved woodwork from Exeter College chapel, reminiscent of Wick Hall, Radley. A room to the front right features an early 19th-century three-bay Ionic screen of the Order of Bassae. William Townsend and Bartholomew Peisley, who had previously worked for Vanbrugh, were involved in building many Oxford colleges in the early 18th century, and the unusual Doric doorcase is repeated at Kingston House, Kingston Bagpuize. Radley Hall was let as a Non-Conformist school in the early 19th century and subsequently became St. Peter's College in 1847, with the exterior stonework being restored after this date.