Clarendon Building

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The Clarendon Building.
The Clarendon Building.
Clarendon Building after cleaning and restoration, 2006.
Clarendon Building after cleaning and restoration, 2006.

The Clarendon Building is a landmark Grade I listed building in Oxford, England and was built between [[1711] and 1713 to house the Oxford University Press. [1] It stands in the centre of the city in Broad Street, near the Bodleian Library and the Sheldonian Theatre. It was vacated by the Press in the early nineteenth century, and used by the university for administrative purposes. In 1975 it was handed over to the Bodleian Library, and now provides office and meeting space for senior members of staff.[2]

The building was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor (Christopher Wren's greatest pupil) and built between 1711 and 1715 to house the Press's printing operations. Before the construction of the Clarendon Building, the presses were in the basement of the Sheldonian Theatre, and the compositors could not work when the Theatre was in use for ceremonies.

The building was financed largely from the proceeds of the commercially successful History of the Great Rebellion by Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, whose money also paid for the building of the Clarendon Laboratory in Oxford.

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