Thanks to St. Andrews (God bless him!), we got a Monday off and I decided to spend the long weekend in Oxford. The previous evening (Friday) it started snowing and by Saturday morning (when I took my 6 hour train to Oxford) Edinburgh and its surroundings were pretty much covered in white. The train journey was extremely stunning especially when the sun rose and cast its rays over the white carpet.
Oxford is a university town – the city is one veritable university campus. Oxford Uni has 38 colleges (Trinity, Balliol, All Souls, Christchurch, New, Queens, Jesus....).
Much ink has been spilt on the hallowed portals of Oxford University and the Kings, politicians, writers, thinkers, philosophers, adventurers, scientists, and mathematicians that have studied there so I will spare you the list.
Many of the colleges are closed to public (the nuisance that we make!), but others cleverly charge an entrance fees for tourists. The first college I visited (after forking out £6/50) was Christ Church College which has the largest quad – Tom quad – so named after the bell of Tom tower (designed by Christopher Wren). This bell rings 101 times every night at 9:05 because at one point ‘turn in’ time used to be 21:00 (Oxford time was 5 minutes behind GMT) and there were 101 students at the college then. Oh Tradition! Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carrol) befriended Alice, the daughter of the Dean of Christ Church college – and ‘Alice in Wonderland’ came to be. The Dining Hall for this college was apparently the inspiration for the Dining Hall in the Harry Potter school. Apart from CC College, I also visited Exeter, Jesus, Magdalen (pronounced 'Maudlin'!!), Trinity, and Balliol. Each college has certain standard accoutrements – a library (out of bounds to lesser mortals), a dining hall, and a chapel. Optional features include halls of residence and quads (courtyards), and porter’s lodges. You do see lots of people cycling around (as the cliché goes) but not in plus-fours or tweed jackets.
A very Oxonion terminology is 'coming up' and 'going down'. You 'come up' to Oxford for the term and 'go down' to London after the term-end (assuming you were from London). Those who are expelled (for example, Richard Burton the explorer) are 'sent down' !!!!
The main research library of the University is the Bodleian library which is also a copyright library (i.e. it is legally bound to receive every book published in the UK – like The British Library) – apparently the library has 11 million items over 120 miles of shelving (most of it underground!). The library building also houses the ‘Divinity School’ which was used for oral exams for degrees – the student would stand at a pulpit on one side of the room – and the professor at the other end and the (oral) ‘exam’ could take days (relatives and friends were allowed to observe).
Ashmolean Museum (named after it’s first benefactor Ashmole) had a great collection of artefacts and paintings. The museum has a lovely collection of Mughal and Indian art. A great exhibition on the ‘Pre-Raphaelites’ was on when I visited. But I liked the ‘Pitt Rivers Museum’ far better. This museum houses the archaeological and anthropological collections of Oxford Uni. Given that so many British adventurers / explorers in the 18th 19th century were from Oxford, you can imagine how rich this collection is. I especially enjoyed the dino fossils while deftly avoiding the snake / reptile corner...
All students at Oxford are given their degree at the Sheldonian Theatre (the first major commission for Christopher Wren). I went for a nice Beethoven / Brahms concert there – the acoustics are really nice and it was a perfect (though the seats were uncomfortable) location for a concert.
The town has a number of well-known pubs – 'The Turf Tavern' (the oldest in Oxford) and the ‘Eagle and Child’ which JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis used to frequent every Tuesday (they were known as the ‘Inklings’). A nice drink there and I was ready for my train back to Edinburgh...
