Hawksmoor's major achievement in rebuilding the College was the North Quadrangle, which faces Radcliffe Square, and so orientates this part of the College east-west, as against the north-south axis of the front quad.

The western side of the north quadrangle, facing out onto Radcliffe Square, is marked by a cloister. This is not a medieval-type cloister, although one had originally existed on this Catte Street front. Rather, the present cloister is a single arcade, open to the interior of the quadrangle and linking the Chapel and the Library. It is enhanced by a central gateway and cupola.

Displaying itself to Radcliffe Square is the eastern side of Hawksmoor's quadrangle, the ‘grand dormitory’ of Fellows' rooms, with common rooms on the ground floor. The three-storey facade is broken by the extraordinary twin towers, as if the west front of a medieval cathedral had been dropped into an Oxford college. 

As the architectural historian Sir Howard Colvin put it, ‘Gothic used scenically and romantically, but within the conventions of a classical tradition... a unique episode in English architecture’.