"Outspake the (Warden) roundly:
'The bridge must straight go down;
For if they once should get the bridge ...'"
MACAULAY, /Horatius/, adapted.

Academic bridges, over the Cam or elsewhere, are a great feature at
Cambridge. At Oxford they were unknown till this century, when
University first of all threw its modest little arch over Logic Lane;
later, in 1913. the "Bridge of Sighs," which forms the subject of
Plate XXIV, was completed. There was a hard struggle before leave
could be obtained from the City Council for thus bridging a public
thoroughfare; University only maintained their claim to a bridge by a
long lawsuit, in which the college rights were firmly established by
the production of charters, which went back to the reign of King
John. The great opposition to the Hertford Bridge was said to be due
to regard for the feelings of the old Warden of New College, who
considered that it would injure the view of his college bell-tower.
Whether this story be true or not, Hertford obtained its permission
at last, and Sir Thomas Jackson added a new attraction to Oxford's
buildings. His genius has been especially shown in triumphing over
the difficulties of the Hertford site, for it was no easy thing to
unite into a harmonious whole, buildings so various; his new chapel--
opened in 1908--is worthy to rank with the best classic architecture
in Oxford.

The variety of the Hertford buildings only reflects the chequered
history of the foundations that have occupied them. As early as the
thirteenth century Hart Hall stood on this site. In the eighteenth
century this old hall was turned into a college by an Oxford