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Published: October 16th 2008
On the Road to Blenheim
The group is walking from the monument to the Palace.Wow....sorry this is so late in coming, but hopefully I can catch up eventually. Let me give you a real quick idea of three things I did recently in Oxford:
-All of us visited Blenheim Palace together as a group. It was only about a 20-25 minute bus ride to Woodstock from Oxford and it was so worth it. Blenheim Palace was, for a long time, the family home of the Duke of Marlbourgh. Queen Anne originally gave the land to John Duke of Marlbourgh as a gift for helping win the Napoleonic War. It is a huge chunck of land. There is a monument devoted to Duke John (which happens to be nearly as tall as the Washington Monument I think) and there is land that goes on forever with at least one lake. We didn't get to go into the Palace because it was pretty expensive (though we might come back later) but only got to see it from across the bridge. We were able to walk around the Palace grounds for free (what the English call rambling) because of a long fought for law which provides public walkways through private property for all to enjoy. Also, Winston
The Monument
This monument was dedicated to John the Duke of Wellington by Queen Anne and Parliament to show their thanks for his help in the Napoleonic War. He got all the land too. Churchill was born in this Palace (though I think he was actually half American from what I have heard).
-The next amazing tour I have gotten to take was because I tagged along with the Oxford Through the Ages class. They took two tours (one around and one in) to Christ Church College in the heart of Oxford. This is one of the most wealthy, influential, and well known of the Oxford University colleges. It was founded in 1555 by Cardinal Worsley who fell out of favor with one of the King Henry's who took over the project for himself. It contains the official Cathedral for this area (it can only be a cathedral as the seat of the Anglican Bishop for this area) which is especially unique because the Cathedral also serves as a college chapel. We got to tour the Cathedral and the dining room which was used for the filming of Harry Potter. Among its important alumni are over a dozen UK Prime Ministers, John Locke, and the Wesley Brothers (as in Charles and John). It is incredibly beautiful and picturesque. The steeple on the Cathedral is thought to be the oldest in England and the
chapel itself is supposedly the smallest Cathedral chapel in England.
-Finally, the third interesting tour I had in Oxford was with the C.S Lewis class to Magdalen College (pronounced Maad-len). It is an especially beautiful college with plenty of towers and spires. It also has two closed in parks within its grounds which hold their own herd of domesticated deer. Also they have what is called Addison's Walk which is a quiet and excellent path through the woods around one of the deer parks. This also happens to be the college where C.S Lewis first taught before moving to teach at Cambridge as well (oddly enough he taught at Magdalen College at Cambridge too). We got to see the building where C.S Lewis stayed while at Magdalen and got an idea of his walks along Addison's Walk with Tolkien and others. Also there was a really old and huge tree on the grounds that was planted in 1801 I believe (it was the seeding of a more ancient and famous tree from the 16th century). It was all really cool.
Anyway, I hope that's a good run through of some of the stuff I've been up to during
September in Oxford. The leaves are just starting to turn for fall and it has started to be consistently colder. But thankfully it has actually gotten more sunny as fall approached not less. It is still so surreal to live in Oxford England.
Sincerely,
Chris
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