Fifty Years on the Cherwell

2024 marks fifty years since Wolfson College moved to its current site on the Cherwell River.

Many thousands of you have spent late nights in the library finishing your DPhils and dissertations; perhaps more have enjoyed the friendships fueled at the College bar; research collaborations have been sparked by conversations over lunch and dinner in the Hall; many of you will remember summers punctuated by punt trips up to the Victoria Arms.

Over the course of those fifty years much has changed: new accommodation built, a new Auditorium and Academic Wing, the arrival of research clusters, and at the end of last year the College became the first higher education institution in the UK to achieve zero carbon. The numbers of students, fellows and staff enjoying this place have grown.

But the values and qualities of Wolfson remain unchanged: be friendly and relaxed; focus on the graduate and postdoc experience; be egalitarian; challenge convention.

Throughout this year we will be celebrating the people who have populated those fifty years and the future of the College. Oxford colleges have great confidence in the decades ahead; we know that understanding our world, and generating new ideas, will never go out of fashion.

50 YEARS ON THE CHERWELL: A CELEBRATION

On Saturday 29th June, Wolfson College opened its doors to hundreds of friends and alumni of the College. Read our recap of the day here.

Find out more