Worcester College, Oxford 4.93

Worcester College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. The college was founded in 1714 by the benefaction of Sir Thomas Cookes, a Worcestershire baronet, with the college gaining its name from the county of Worcestershire. Its predecessor, Gloucester College, had been an institution of learning on the same site since the late 13th century until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539., Worcester College had a financial endowment of £73 million.Notable alumni of the college include the media mogul Rupert Murdoch, television producer and screenwriter Russell T Davies, US Supreme Court justice Elena Kagan, actress Emma Watson and novelist Richard Adams.Buildings and groundsThe buildings are diverse, especially in the main quadrangle: looking down into the main quadrangle from the entrance through the main building, to the right is an imposing eighteenth century building in the neo-classical style; and to the left a row of medieval buildings known as "the cottages", which are among the oldest residential buildings in Oxford. These cottages are the most substantial surviving part of Gloucester College, Worcester's predecessor on the same site: this was a college for Benedictine monks, founded in 1283 and dissolved with the Dissolution of the Monasteries in about 1539.