Photos

Two statues (in cast iron) of Atlas and Hercules who support the globe are on the roof of the eighteenth-century Radcliffe Observatory. The building, within Green College Oxford, functioned as an observatory for 160 years from 1773 until 1934.

The Observatory was built with funds from the trustees of Dr. John Radcliffe (1652-1714) whose considerable estate had already financed a new quadrangle for his old College (University College, Oxford) as well as the Radcliffe Library (now the Radcliffe Camera, completed in 1749) and the Radcliffe Infirmary (1770). Building began in 1772 to plans by the architect Henry Keene, but only the Observer's House is his design. Upon Keene's death in 1776, the Observatory was completed to a different design by James Wyatt (1746-1813). Wyatt based his design on a small Tower of the Winds in Athens, an illustration of which had appeared in Stuart & Revett's Antiquities of Athens published in 1762.

Wyatt placed his Tower of the Winds above a semi-circular central building with its arc facing north. This central semi-circle provides space for an entrance-hall at the foot of the staircase-well and for two other side rooms, originally for the Observer and his assistant. Beneath the Tower itself are rooms at each of three levels: the ground floor is now used as the Common Room, the first floor, originally the library, is now the College dining-room, and on the top floor is the magnificent octagonal observing-room. Now bereft of its instruments, the room nevertheless still contains some of the original furniture as well as a spiral staircase which leads to an upper gallery. From this gallery the Observer had access to the roof (now closed off ) where meteorological observations were carried out. Large windows lead from the observing-room on to the balcony, making it possible to wheel observing-instruments out of doors.