And that sweet City with her dreaming spires,
She needs not June for beauty's heightening,
Lovely all times she lies, lovely to-night!
That's where I now find myself. I did come here once, many years ago, on a day trip from London by train, but I didn't prepare myself properly and didn't really get a very good look at the magnificent architecture. In fact, I really don't remember much about that visit at all, except that it happened.
But some years later, I encountered the poetry of Matthew Arnold. Through his vivid description of the city and the surrounding region I found myself falling in love with the idea of Oxford. Even though it is no longer the place he knew in the 1800s (in many ways) there are still many sights that he would find familiar among the spectacular churches and colleges, dating from all periods from the 1200s to the 1800s.
It's a crowded little city, crowded because of narrow streets -- narrow even by British standards, which is saying a lot! -- and crowded with people because of the University and its numerous colleges, and all the tourists. This is one place where common sense dictates that you leave the car at one of the five "Park and Ride" car parks on the outskirts and take a bus into town, where you can walk about. And that's just what I did. My lucky break was that the park and ride terminal was right beside my hotel, so I didn't even have to drive there!
As if that weren't enough, there was another substantial bonus: I awoke to a cloudless, brilliantly sunny sky, made to order for walking and for photography of beautiful old buildings -- two of my favourite outdoor activities!
The park and ride bus dropped me off in St. Aldate's Street, right beside the front of Christ Church College and it's famous Tom Tower, which houses a bell named Great Tom (hence the name). This, by the way, perpetuates nearly the same error which people fall into when describing the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament in London as "Big Ben". That name actually refers to the largest bell in the tower, the one that strikes the hours. Tom Tower was designed (beautifully) by Christopher Wren. Perhaps even more striking is the high Gothic style of the college's Hall.
Just a short way north is the 4-way intersection from which Oxford as we now know it was laid out, and here you find the ancient Carfax Tower. Depending on who you believe, the name is said to be a corrupted form of the French "quatre faces" (for four sides) or "carrefour" (for market place).
Stretching east from Carfax is the gentle curve of the High Street, lined with shops interspersed in between the noble buildings of several colleges. Part way down the street, on the north side, is the beautiful Gothic St. Mary's Church, the official University Church.
At the end of the street is Magdalen College, with its prominent chapel tower. Beside it, Magdalen Bridge crosses the twin narrow channels of the River Cherwell, here nearing the point where it will merge with the Thames.
Heading back into the city, and turning north, I came next to the imposing and unusual Radcliffe Camera (in this case, Camera is the Latin word for a room or hall). It was built in the mid-1700s to a design by James Gibbs to house a science library funded by the bequest of Dr. John Radcliffe. This was ironic in the extreme, as Radcliffe had been a noted iconoclast and frequent mocker of the reading of books! One contemporary remarked in a letter that Radcliffe's bequest was "about as logical as if a eunuch should found a seraglio"!
Not far beyond Radcliffe Square is a unique enclosed footbridge, connecting two buildings of Hertford College. It looks like it's built in the height of fashion of the same mid-1700s period, but this one is actually a kind of romantic fake -- it was finished in 1910! Colloquially it's known as the "Bridge of Sighs" after the famous enclosed footbridge in Venice, but the resemblance to that city's Rialto Bridge is even more striking. I think what amuses me the most is that the bridge is so much more ornate than either of the two buildings it connects!
Right across from the Hertford Bridge is the genuinely-1700s Sheldonian Theatre. Its primary role is to provide a venue for university ceremonies such as convocations. But it is also used for lectures, recitals, and concerts.
Just north of this area, the imposing Martyrs Memorial recalls one of the darker chapters of English history. When Henry VIII's daughter, Mary, came to the throne, she made strenuous efforts to turn the by-now-Protestant England back to Roman Catholicism. When three bishops refused to take the oath of loyalty to the Pope, she had them imprisoned in Oxford and they were burned at the stake just outside the city walls. Largely as a result of this triple execution, Mary became known to subsequent generations as "Bloody Mary". The irony is that when her younger half-sister Elizabeth succeeded her in turn, and England was turned Protestant again, Elizabeth's agents executed more than ten times the number of people executed in Mary's reign for religious causes. Yet Elizabeth has gone down in popular history as a wise and powerful ruler, while Mary has been despised as a bloodthirsty tyrant. Or, as Sellar and Yeatman said in their classic 1066 And All That, Mary was a Bad Queen and Elizabeth was a Good Queen.
Now, all of this architectural and historical study had taken up several hours, and involved quite a few kilometres of walking on pavement, bricks, cobblestones, gravel, and grass. I was beginning to suffer from a rather painful case of "tourist feet", also known as incipient blisters. So I decided to hunt up some lunch, and right there on Magdalen Street was an alleyway leading to the Crown, a very long-established pub which was in fact patronized by Shakespeare when he was in Oxford. Well, if the Bard liked it, I figured it had to be pretty good, and it was. The outdoor patio looks appealing, but I was actually feeling a bit chilly and decided to eat indoors. By the way, all the best old pubs in Oxford are hidden down narrow alleyways. Having a pub sitting out in the open on the main streets of this city was plainly not permitted!
By the time I came out, it was almost an hour and a half later. There's something about a British pub that makes me want to linger, especially when it stocks my favourite cider (Strongbow) on tap! But eventually, out I came, and promptly felt the first raindrops splatting on my head. The sunny morning with a clear sky was going back to the same old wild pattern of clear sunshine alternating with hearty rain showers. With that, I headed for the nearest bus stop, and rode back up to the hotel, calling it a good morning's work!
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