The College
The College is built of Sussex sandstone around a quadrangle and contains large mullioned windows and four exquisite old doorways, the northern one of which bears the Dorset Coat of Arms. These almshouses are a splendid example of Jacobean architecture.
The principle rooms are the Chapel with its original carved door and the Great Hall with its Minstrels' Gallery and hammer beam roof.
A previous Warden was the Victorian hymnologist, the Revd. Dr. John Mason Neale. In his study adjoining the Chapel, he wrote many well-known hymns and carols, including "Good King Wenceslas" and "Jerusalem the Golden". Dr. Neale, who died here in 1866 after twenty years as warden, also founded the first Anglican sisterhood, the Order of St. Margaret, and was one of the leading figures in the Oxford movement, which endevoured to revitalise high-church institutions.
History
Visitors to Sackville College are immediately immersed in 400 years of history.
The College's connection with the Sackville family goes back to the year 1609 and the will of Robert Sackville, Earl of Dorset. This provided a sum of money with which to buy land and "build a convenient house of brick and stone" to be used as an almshouse. For many years the College had a second use, too: providing overnight accommodation for the Sackville family as they journeyed to and from their estates in Sussex.
Today the College Warden lives in part of the wing that once served the Sackville family. But the College's primary use has never altered: it still provides accommodation, now modernized and comfortable, for elderly people. They enjoy the seclusion of their own flats and the comfort of communal rooms behind the walls of a perfectly preserved quadrangle.
The College is a charitable foundation which operates according to an act of Parliament of 1624 and a Royal Charter of 1631.