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Architectural historian Dr Anthony Geraghty explains the historical influences that shaped Christopher Wren’s design of the University of Oxford’s iconic 350-year-old Sheldonian Theatre, today a venue for many FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival events. Geraghty shows how the restoration of the monarchy and the university’s commitment to episcopal religion both shaped Wren’s design, and he explains how the Sheldonian stood apart in the England of that day as a building without precedent. The building of the Sheldonian signalled a shift in university architecture in Oxford from a medieval to a classical design.

Geraghty is senior lecturer in the history of art at the University of York. His book on the Sheldonian Theatre won the Alice Davis Hitchcock Medallion, awarded to a book that provides an outstanding contribution to the study or knowledge of architectural history.