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At the east end of the University College, narrow Logic Lane threads through to Merton College (Mon-Fri 2-4pm, Sat & Sun 10am-4pm; free; tel 01865/276310), historically the city's most important college. University college may have been founded earlier, but it was Merton - opened in 1264 - which set the model for colleges in both Oxford and Cambridge, being the first to gather its students and tutors together in one place. Furthermore, unlike the other two, Merton retains some of its original medieval buildings with the best of the thirteenth-century architecture clustering around Mob Quad , a charming courtyard with mullioned windows and Gothic doorways. The quad's Library is of interest too, built in the 1370s and the first library in England to store books upright on shelves as distinct from in piles. Much of the woodwork, including the panelling, screens and bookcases, dates from the Tudor period, but some fittings are original and there's a small display on one of the college's most distinguished alumni, Max Beerbohm. The adjacent Chapel is earlier, dating from 1290, and has never had a nave, leaving the transepts as ante-chapels in which a curious monument shows Thomas Bodley (founder of Oxford's most important library) surrounded by masculine-looking women in classical garb. Other famous Merton alumni include T.S. Eliot, Angus Wilson, Louis MacNeice and Kris Kristofferson
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