A Day in Oxford

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A Day in Oxford

We had a smooth and comfortable train ride to Oxford through pleasant rolling countryside, and it only took about an hour. After a short walk we reached the city centre, but had not seen many dreaming spires yet. We quickly decided that a walking tour would be the best way to see the highlights so we booked a tour that included entry into some of the famous buildings and filled in the time by having morning tea. Our tour guide was a very urbane and knowledgeable character who gave us a potted history of the founding of the town, which preceded the establishment of the first university there by several centuries. Oxford was only the third university to be established in Europe after Bologna and the Sorbonne. (You can look up Oxford history on the web.)

He also explained very carefully the the university and the university colleges were quite separate entities. We started at Trinity College and went into the quad, just like you read about in books. There is fine old architecture everywhere, some of it classical, and some gothic or gothic revival. We went into the dining hall where some of the old portraits had given way to photos of eminent female graduates. Oxford was of course a totally male establishment until the very late 19th century. One college even had a rule that only one member of staff, the laundress, could be female and she should be old and ugly! Trinity College has a very fine chapel with beautiful stained glass and carving by Grinling Gibbons. In the old days, daily attendance at divine service was compulsory for students. We then visited the Bodleian library building which has a magnificent carved ceiling and was used in the shooting of Harry Potter. Oxford has really adopted Harry Potter, much to our amusement. The Bodleian took decades to build as they kept running out of money. If someone contributed enough, their initials and or coat of arms were carved into a ceiling boss. The building looks the same as it did when it was used as a lecture hall and examination room. There are lots of new faculty buildings in various parts of Oxford but we concentrated on the central ancient ones. We saw the famous circular Radcliffe Camera, though we could not go inside.

After we finished the tour Dave wanted to go to the Ashmolean Museum as there might be someone there that he could talk to about evolutionary theory but there wasn’t. The staff suggested the Natural History Museum so we had a very pleasant walk along tree lined streets to this museum which is housed in the most extraordinary looking building with lots of multicoloured arches. The staff there were very helpful, and the museum also had excellent displays of dinosaur skeletons, minerals and other aspects of the natural world. It was very popular with young families. We recruited our strength with some excellent soup at their cafe and then set off gently towards the train station, which was very crowded. However there was plenty of room in the train, where our homeward journey was enlivened by the noise and antics of a small group of “hearties” - just like in books. We were pretty wrecked by the time we got back, but we did figure out where the Eurostar leaves from – all ready for Monday.

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