Abbot's Kitchen, Oxford

The Abbot's Kitchen in Oxford, England, is an early chemistry laboratory based on the Abbot's Kitchen at Glastonbury Abbey in Somerset, England, a mediaeval 14th-century octagonal building that served as the kitchen at the abbey.^[1]

Abbot's Kitchen chemistry laboratory in Oxford

Detail of a wood engraving by W. E. Hodgkin of 1855 showing the Abbot's Kitchen

History

Chemistry was first recognized as a separate discipline at Oxford University with the construction of this laboratory, attached to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and opening in 1860.^[2] The laboratory is a stone-built structure to the right of the museum, built in the Victorian Gothic style. The building was one of the first ever purpose-built chemical laboratories anywhere and was extended in 1878. A further major extension adding three wings was completed in 1957.^[3] It is now part of the new graduate college of the University, Reuben College, which opened in 2023.

Gallery

• 
  Oxford University Museum of Natural History (left) and the Abbot's Kitchen chemistry laboratory (right)
• 
  Wood engraving of the Oxford University Museum with the smaller octagonal Abbot's Kitchen building on the right, by W. E. Hodgkin (1855)
• 
  The Radcliffe Science Library with the Abbot's Kitchen on the left

See also

• Abbot's Kitchen, Glastonbury, on which the laboratory building was based
• Balliol–Trinity Laboratories, another early Oxford chemistry laboratory
• Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford
• List of octagonal buildings and structures