Small, select and elegant, Brasenose College was founded in 1509. A Brasenose Hall, belonging to Oxford University, already stood here by 1262, however, and when rebellious students relocated to Stamford, Lincolnshire, in 1333, they took its 'brass nose', or brazen door-knocker, with them. In 1890, therefore, the college bought what had become a girls’ school in Stamford, seized the knocker from its front door, and fixed it for evermore above the high table in the dining hall.
The main point of interest in Brasenose is the chapel, with its fine painted, fan-vaulted ceiling. Famous alumni include Lord of the Flies author William Golding, Monty Python's Michael Palin, Ashmolean Museum founder Elias Ashmole and British prime minister David Cameron.
