Welcome to the Holywell Manor Website. Holywell Manor is the graduate centre for Balliol College, in the centre of Oxford about ten minutes walk from the college. Graduates studying at Balliol live in the Manor, where for thirty years we have offered a social and academic environment especially devoted to their needs.

Holywell Manor with its historic buildings and beautiful gardens, and its modern murals and sculptures, is one of Oxford's best-kept secrets. Just outside the old city walls, by the college sports field, it was originally a 16th century manor house. The buildings had a chequered career as place of pilgrimage (the original Holy Well), tenements, pubs, cock-fighting arena, warehouse and female prison. Balliol built on two wings in the 1930s. With two further modern buildings about 180 people live on site in single study/bedrooms, all with ethernet connections.

We have over thirty different nationalities here with an even greater variety of subjects. There is a programme of interdisciplinary seminars with distinguished outside speakers of many varieties; and the Middle Common Room organises excellent internal research seminars. We have our own dining facilities, a common room and other public rooms; the gardens are open to the public once a year, and host barbecues and the annual garden party. The graduates run their own bar and a lively social calendar, including a traditional Burns night to celebrate Balliol's Scottish ancestry.

If you want to do your graduate studies in Oxford, this is a very special community. We welcome your interest: our contact addresses are given below.

Diego Zancani,
Praefectus