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| Oxford Information |
| Think of OXFORD and inevitably you think
of its university, revered as one of the world's great academic institutions,
inhabiting honey-coloured stone buildings set around ivy-clad quadrangles.
Much of this is accurate enough, but although the university dominates
central Oxford both physically and mentally, the wider city has an entirely
different character, its economy built on the car plants of Cowley to
the south of the centre. It was here that Britain's first mass-produced
cars were produced in the 1920s and, despite the fact that there have
been more downs than ups in recent years, the plants are still vitally
important to the area. Oxford started late, in Anglo-Saxon times, and blossomed even later, under the Normans, when the cathedral was constructed and Oxford was chosen as a royal residence. The origins of the university are obscure, but it seems that the reputation of Henry I , the so-called "Scholar King", helped attract students in the early twelfth century, their numbers increasing with the expulsion of English students from the Sorbonne in 1167. The first colleges, founded mostly by rich bishops, were essentially ecclesiastical institutions and this was reflected in collegiate rules and regulations - until 1877 lecturers were not allowed to marry and women were not granted degrees until 1920. There are common architectural features , too, with the private rooms of the students arranged around quadrangles (quads) as are most of the communal rooms - the chapels, halls (dining rooms) and libraries. Oxford should be high on anyone's itinerary, and can keep you occupied for several days. The university buildings include some of England's finest architecture, and the city can also boast some excellent museums and numerous bars and restaurants. The City The compact centre of Oxford lies in between the Thames and the Cherwell rivers, just to the north of the point where they join. In theory, and on most maps, the Thames is known within the city as the "Isis", but few locals actually use the term. Central Oxford's principal point of reference is Carfax , a busy junction from where three of the city's main thoroughfares begin: the High Street runs east to Magdalen Bridge and the Cherwell; St Aldate's south to the Thames; and Cornmarket north to the broad avenue of St Giles. Many of the oldest colleges face onto the High Street or the sidestreets adjoining it, their mellow stonework combining to create one of the most beautiful parts of Oxford. Here, as elsewhere in the city, all of the more visited colleges have restricted opening hours to enable them to control the flow of tourists, and some impose an admission charge, too, while others permit no regular public access at all. Of those that do open their doors, opening times are fairly consistent throughout the year, but there are sporadic term-time variations, especially at weekends. It's also worth noting that during the exam season, which stretches from late April to early June, all the colleges have periods when they are closed to the public. For more specific information, call the relevant college. |
| Arrival Information and Guided Tours |
| From Oxford train station , it's a five-
to ten-minute walk east to the centre along Park End Street and its continuation,
Hythe Bridge Street. Long-distance and many county-wide buses terminate
at the Gloucester Green bus station , in the centre adjoining George Street.
Many of these buses make other city stops prior to arriving at the bus
station - ask the respective company for details. Most city services -
including Park and Ride - are operated by the Oxford Bus Company (tel
01865/785400) and many of their buses pull in on the High Street and St
Giles. Oxford's (municipally engineered) lack of convenient downtown parking
makes the city's Park-and-Ride scheme very attractive, except on Sundays
when the scheme pretty much closes down and you should be able to park
in the centre without much problem. There are Park-and-Ride car parks
on all the main access routes into the city. The Gloucester Green bus station is yards from the tourist office (April-Sept Mon-Sat 9.30am-5pm, Sun 10am-3.30pm; Oct-March closed Sun; tel 01865/726871, ). They have a wealth of information about the city's sights, though precious little is issued free. There are, however, two free listings magazines , the plodding This Month in Oxford and the livelier WOW. The tourist office also operates an accommodation-booking service and offers excellent guided tours - a two-hour stroll round the city centre costs £5.85. There are several tours daily, but it's still a good idea to book in advance. More specialized tours are available, too, with one following in the footsteps of Lewis Carroll, others devoted to Tolkien and to British TV's Inspector Morse; these need to be arranged ahead of time - ring the tourist office for details. |
| On The River |
| Punting is a favourite summer pastime both among students and visitors, but handling a punt - a flat-bottomed boat ideal for the shallow waters of the Thames and Cherwell rivers - requires some practice. The punt is propelled and steered with a long pole, which beginners inevitably get stuck in riverbed mud: if this happens, let go and paddle back, otherwise you're likely to be pulled overboard. The Cherwell, though much narrower than the Thames and therefore trickier to navigate, provides more opportunities for pulling to the side for a picnic, an essential part of the punting experience. As regards boat rental , Magdalen Bridge boat house (tel 01865/202643), beside the Cherwell at the east end of the High Street, is the most central spot, but in summer the queues soon build up, so either get there early in the morning - at around 10am - or head off to the Cherwell Boat House (tel 01865/515978), by Wolfson College off Banbury Road, a mile or so north of the centre. Alternatively, there's the Thames boat station at Folly Bridge (tel 01993/868190), at the south end of St Aldate's, but from here you'll have to punt a fair way along a broad stretch of river before being able to turn off into the Cherwell. Expect to pay about £10 per hour for a boat plus a £30 deposit, and sometimes ID is required. Five people make an ideal group - four sitting and one punting. If you're determined not to do any actual punting, you might consider hiring a chauffeured punt (£25 for 30min, plus free booze). Other types of craft are also available for rent. Call the boathouses for more information or if there are any doubts about the weather. |
| Eating and Drinking |
| With so many students and tourists to
cater for, Oxford has developed a wide choice of places to eat and drink.
For a midday bite, the numerous sandwich bars are ideal - some of the
best are listed under "Snacks and cafés" and you'll find several
others in the Covered Market, between the High and Cornmarket, an Oxford
institution as essential to local shoppers as the Bodleian is to academics.
There's also a sprinkling of first-rate (and pricey) restaurants , but
the majority cater for the less expensive end of the market with varying
degrees of success - again some of the better options are listed under
"Restaurants". Reasonable food is served at most pubs , but
those listed have been singled out for their ambience or selection of
beers rather than for their menus. Snacks and Cafés Beat Café Little Clarendon St. Hippified café with fancy decor and stained-glass windows. Sells a good line in inexpensive sandwiches, salads and smoothies. Convocation Coffee House Radcliffe Square. Attached to the church of St Mary the Virgin, this inexpensive café occupies an atmospheric stone-vaulted room and serves up good quality coffee and cake and quiche-and-salad lunches. There's a small outside area, but it's more than a little glum. Daily 10am-5pm. No smoking. Felson's 32 Little Clarendon St. Another hot contender for Oxford's best sandwich bar, this tiny, friendly place has a huge range of fillings for its baguettes and rolls. George & Davies Little Clarendon St. An established ice-cream parlour that stays open well after the pubs and cinemas. The cow mural is good fun too. Nosebag 6 St Michael's St. A civilized but unassuming place, with chintzy decor and classical background music. The hot and cold food attracts queues at lunchtime; not so in the evening, when it is a good place for a quick but wholesome meal. Good selection of veggie food. Open till 9pm. St Giles' Café 52 St Giles. Oxford's favourite greasy spoon. The huge fry-ups and strong coffee pulls an interesting mix of people, including the poet Elizabeth Jennings, who is said to be a regular here. Restaurants Browns 5-11 Woodstock Rd tel 01865/319600. Buzzing and stylish brasserie-restaurant with abundant foliage. Main courses from hamburgers to fresh salmon, in addition to legendary Guinness pies. Open for breakfast. Moderate. La Capannina 247 Cowley Rd tel 01865/248200. Oxford's most authentic Italian is cosy and unpretentious. A mile or so up the Cowley Road, it's easy to find thanks to the extravagant mock-log-cabin facade. Inexpensive. Cherwell Boathouse Bardwell Rd, off Banbury Rd tel 01865/552746. A deservedly popular spot for an unhurried meal at a riverside setting, about a mile north of town. Closed Mon & Tues, plus Sun eve. Reservations essential. Moderate. Gee's Restaurant 61A Banbury Rd tel 01865/553540. Chic conservatory setting, but not as expensive as it looks. The inventive menu includes such items as chargrilled vegetables with polenta, roasted beetroot, a variety of steaks and a wide choice of breads. Strong on fish, too, with seafood main courses for around £14. Open daily for lunch and dinner plus brunch at weekends. Moderate. Hilos Jamaican Eating House 68 Cowley Rd tel 01865/725984. Legendary West Indian restaurant with oodles of atmosphere and imported Jamaican beer; the menu's meat-oriented (curried goat often features), the lighting low and the background music heavy reggae. Moderate. Le Petit Blanc 71-72 Walton St tel 01865/510999. Renowned French chef Raymond Blanc's affordable, and much hyped, alternative to his famous Manoir aux Quat' Saisons in Great Milton, some seven miles east of Oxford (tel 01844/278881). The food is a refreshing mix of French gourmet (corn-fed quail with lime leaf and ginger) and traditional English (pan-fried Gloucester old spot pork). If you want to splash out, this is the place to do it - main courses are a very reasonable £12-15. Expensive. Pubs and Bars Eagle & Child 49 St Giles. Known variously as the "Bird & Baby", "Bird & Brat" or "Bird & Bastard", this pub was once the haunt of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, and still attracts a comparatively genteel mix of professionals and academics. Isis by Iffley Lock tel 01865/242466. Lovely spot amid the flood meadows, just under two miles' walk southeast along the Thames from Folly Bridge; definitely a summer pub. Take any bus running along the Abingdon Road to Donnington Bridge, from where it's a ten-minute walk south along the river. King's Arms 40 Holywell St. Prone to student overkill on term-time weekends, but otherwise very pleasant, with snug rooms at the back and a good choice of beers. Lamb & Flag St Giles. Generations of university students have hung out in this old pub, which comes complete with low-beamed ceilings and a series of cramped but cosy rooms. Good range of ales. The Turf Bath Place, off Holywell St. Small, extraordinarily atmospheric seventeenth-century pub with a fine range of beers, and mulled wine in winter. Abundant seating outside. White Horse 52 Broad St. A tiny, old pub with snug rooms, pictures of old university sports teams on the walls and Real Ales. It was used as a set for the Inspector Morse TV series. |
| Entertainment and Nightlife |
| Having spawned both Supergrass and Radiohead,
you'd think Oxford would be hot on popular music, but the star quality
of its local heroes is not reflected in either the live-music or club
scene which, aside from a couple of noteworthy venues, is comparatively
lame. Part of the reason for this is that the city's students tend to
fall back on college discos, an option closed to the rest. By comparison,
devotees of classical music are well catered for, with the city's main
concert halls and certain college chapels - primarily Christ Church, Merton
and New College - offering a wide-ranging programme of concerts and recitals.
As regards theatre , student productions dominate the city repertoire,
but the quality of acting varies, particularly when they tackle Shakespeare,
the favourite for the open-air college productions put on for tourists
during the summer. For listings of upcoming gigs and concerts, consult either This Month in Oxford or WOW , a glossy, listings magazine. Both are available free at the tourist office. The Friday edition of the Oxford Times has a listings section too. Tickets to most musical events are on sale at the Oxford Playhouse. Live Music and Clubs The Coven Oxpens Rd tel 01865/242770. Formerly a gay disco, but now gone more or less straight. Tacky grottoes for tête-à-têtes, but generally a good atmosphere and decent music with techno/acid/hard house featuring prominently. Open Tues-Sat 9pm-2am. Freud Walton St tel 01865/311171. Occupying a grand building in the style of a Roman temple, this new and fashionable café-bar-cum-club serves food till 8pm. Frequent live music. About five minutes' walk north of Worcester College - opposite Great Clarendon St. Open Mon & Tues 11am-midnight, Wed-Sat 11am-2am. Old Fire Station (OFS) 40 George St tel 01865/794494. Multi-purpose venue with musicals and theatre, plus DJ club nights Fri & Sat 9pm-3am. Park End Club Cantay House, 37 Park End St tel 01865/250181. A slick outfit, currently the most popular mainstream club in Oxford, with heavies on the door and a cattle-market atmosphere at weekends. Open Mon, Wed & Thurs-Sat 9.30pm-2am. Zodiac 190 Cowley Rd tel 01865/420042. Far and away Oxford's most respected indie and dance venue, with live bands throughout the week. Open Mon-Sat 9pm-2am. Classical Music and Theatre Oxford Playhouse Beaumont St tel 01865/798600, . The city's best theatre. Professional touring companies perform a mixture of plays, opera and concerts, with the odd production by Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), the top student group. Pegasus Theatre Magdalen Rd tel 01865/722851, . Low-budget, avant-garde productions dominate the programme of this east Oxford theatre. Sheldonian Theatre Broad St tel 01865/277299. Hard seats and less-than-perfect acoustics, but still Oxford's top concert hall. |
| Listings |
| Bike rental Bikezone, 6 Lincoln
House, Market St, off Cornmarket tel 01865/728877. Books Blackwells Map & Travel Shop, Broad St tel 01865/792792; Borders, Magdalen St tel 01865/203901; Waterstones, Broad St tel 01865/790212. Buses Fast and frequent buses to London are operated by Oxford Tube, a subsidiary of Stagecoach (tel 01865/772250), who also run most medium-range services across Oxfordshire. Most urban routes - including Park-and-Ride schemes - are operated by the Oxford Bus Company (tel 01865/785400), who also offer a frequent service to London. Most other long-distance services are in the hands of National Express (tel 08705/808080). Internet Internet Exchange Café, Costa Coffee, 8-12 George St tel 01865/241601; Wired to, 138 Magdalen St tel 01865/727770. Post Office 102 St Aldate's tel 0345/223344. Taxis Ranks are liberally distributed across the city, including at the train station, Broad St, High St and St Giles. Alternatively, call City Taxis tel 01865/201201 or 001 Taxis tel 01865/240000. |
| Exploring Oxford |
| Around Oxford As a base for exploring some of the most delightful parts of central England, Oxford is hard to beat. It's a short drive west to the Cotswolds and near at hand also are the Vale of White Horse and the Chiltern Hills. If, on the other hand, you're using public transport, the options are much more limited, the best choice being the short and easy bus ride north to the charming little town of Woodstock and its imperious neighbour, Blenheim Palace. Blenheim Palace Nowadays, successful British commanders get medals and titles, but in 1704, as a thank-you for his victory over the French at the battle of Blenheim, Queen Anne gave John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722) the royal estate of Woodstock, along with the promise of enough cash to build himself a gargantuan palace. Work started promptly on Blenheim Palace (mid-March to Oct daily 10.30am-5.30pm; £9.50) with the principal architect being Sir John Vanbrugh. The end result is the country's grandest example of Baroque civic architecture, an Italianate palace that is more a monument than a house. The interior is stuffed with paintings and tapestries, plus all manner of objets d'art , including furniture from Versailles, and stone and marble carvings by Grinling Gibbons. The ceiling of the Great Hall sports painted allegories celebrating Marlborough's martial skills and the Dining Saloon holds murals by Louis Laguerre, but frankly it's hard to warm to all this conspicuous consumption. Neither is the guided tour conducive to much idle rumination, with guides whisking visitors through the palace in about an hour. As for the Marlboroughs, John Churchill was one of the few members of the clan to have made anything but a poor impression, the spectacular exception being Sir Winston Churchill , born here in 1874. Several rooms are dedicated to the wartime prime minister, who is buried with his wife in the graveyard of Bladon Church , visible from the palace. Formal gardens (mid-March to Oct daily 10.30am-5.30pm; entry covered by ticket to palace) flank the house, but the open parkland (daily 9am-4.45pm; £2, £6 for cars, including passengers) is more enticing, especially just north of the house, where the ground falls away dramatically to an exquisite artificial lake, Queen Pool. It's said that Capability Brown, who landscaped the grounds, laid out the trees and avenues to represent the battle of Blenheim. Whatever the truth of the tale, fine vistas fan out in every direction, including one from Vanbrugh's Grand Bridge, over the main lake, up to the Column of Victory, erected by Sarah Jennings and topped by a statue of her husband posing heroically in a toga. There are two entrances to Blenheim, one just south of Woodstock on the Oxford road and another through the Triumphal Arch at the end of Park Street in Woodstock itself. Woodstock WOODSTOCK , eight miles north of Oxford, has royal associations going back to Saxon times, with a string of kings attracted by its excellent hunting. The Royalists used Woodstock as a base during the Civil War, but, after their defeat, Cromwell never got round to destroying either the town or the palace, but the latter was ultimately given to (and flattened by) the Duke of Marlborough, in 1704. Long dependent on royal and then ducal patronage, Woodstock is now both a well-heeled commuter town for Oxford and a provider of food, drink and beds for visitors to Blenheim. It is also an extremely pretty little place, its handsome stone buildings gathered around the main square, at the junction of Market and High streets. It is here that you'll find the town's one specific sight, the Oxfordshire Museum (Tues-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 2-5pm; £1), a well-composed review of the archeology, social history and industry of the county. The museum shares its premises with the town's tourist office (Mon-Sat 9.30am-5.30pm, Sun 1-5pm; tel 01993/813276), which has a useful range of information on the nearby Cotswolds. Woodstock has several good pubs , the best being the Bear , a delightful old coaching inn with low-beamed ceilings and antique furnishings across from the museum; it offers a varied menu and serves a good range of beers. Buses from Oxford run every thirty minutes or so (reduced service on Sun), with some continuing on to Stratford-upon-Avon. Ashmolean The university's principal museums grew up around the collections of the magpie-like John Tradescant , gardener to Charles I and an energetic traveller. During his wanderings, Tradescant built up a huge collection of artefacts and natural specimens, which became known as Tradescant's Ark. He bequeathed his collection to his friend and sponsor, the lawyer Elias Ashmole, who in turn gave it to the university - and they eventually split it up between the Ashmolean and the Pitt-Rivers museums. Tradescant's Ark has been added to ever since. The Ashmolean (June-Aug Tues, Wed, Fri & Sat 10am-5pm, Thurs 10am-7pm, Sun noon-5pm; rest of year Tues-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 2-5pm; free), the oldest museum in the country, occupies a mammoth Neoclassical building to the north of the centre on the corner of Beaumont Street and St Giles. The building is enormous and so is the collection - far too much to absorb in one visit, so either allow for several or stick to the highlights. Plans are available at reception and the museum shop sells a useful introductory guide for £3.95. Beginning on the ground floor, the Egyptian rooms should not be missed: in addition to well-preserved mummies and sarcophagi, there are unusual frescoes, rare textiles from the Roman and Byzantine periods and several fine examples of relief carving, such as on the shrine of Taharqa. Nearby, the Islamic Art room includes superb Islamic ceramics, while the five Chinese Art rooms contain some remarkable early Chinese pottery with the simple monochrome pots of the Sung dynasty (960-1279) looking surprisingly modern. On the First Floor, a selection from Tradescant's Ark is gathered together in Room 27 . Amongst the assorted curiosities, highlights include Guy Fawkes' lantern, Oliver Cromwell's death mask and Powhatan's mantle, a hanging made of deerskin and decorated with shells. Powhatan was the father of Pocahontas, and this mantle dates back to the earliest contacts between English colonists and the Native Americans of modern-day Virginia. Moving on, the archeologist Arthur Evans had close ties with the museum and he gifted it a stunning collection of Minoan finds from his years working at Knossos in Crete (1900-06). These artefacts are displayed in the Crete & Aegean Room and pride of place goes to the storage jars, sumptuously decorated with sea creatures and marine plants. Most of the rest of the first floor is devoted to European painting from the Italian Renaissance to the twentieth century with a series of clearly labelled galleries arranged in roughly chronological order. Amongst the Italian works, look out for Piero di Cosimo's Forest Fire and Paolo Uccello's Hunt in the Forest , though Tintoretto, Veronese and Bellini are all well represented too. There's also a strong showing of French paintings , with Pissarro, Monet, Manet and Renoir featuring alongside Cézanne and Bonnard. Part of the Ashmolean's hoard of prints is on display in the Prints & Drawings Room with Michelangelo and Raphael taking the lead. Up on the second floor, one room each is devoted to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British art : Samuel Palmer's visionary paintings run rings around the rest, though there's lashings of Pre-Raphaelite stuff from Rossetti and Holman Hunt to assorted cohorts. From The Carfax to University College Too busy to be comfortable and too modern to be pretty, the Carfax is not a place to hang around, but it is overlooked by an interesting remnant of the medieval town, a chunky fourteenth-century tower , adorned by a pair of clock-tower jacks dressed in vaguely Roman gear. The tower is all that remains of St Martin's church, where legend has it that William Shakespeare stood sponsor at the baptism of one of his friend's children. As you stroll east along the High Street from Carfax, the first building to demand your attention is St Mary the Virgin - on the left just after Brasenose College. The church is a hotchpotch of architectural styles, mostly fifteenth century, but with an elaborate, thirteenth-century pinnacled spire and a distinctive Baroque porch, flanked by chunky corkscrewed pillars. The church's interior is disappointingly mundane, but the tower (daily: July & Aug 9am-7pm; rest of year closes 5pm; £1.60) - entered round the back opposite the Radcliffe Camera - provides exquisite views over the centre. Further along the High Street is University College (no set opening times; tel 01865/276602), where the long curved facade and twin gateway towers date from the seventeenth century. Known as "Univ", the college claims Alfred the Great as its founder, but things really got going with a formal endowment in 1249, making it Oxford's oldest college - though nothing of that period survives. A year Univ may prefer to forget is 1811, when it expelled Percy Bysshe Shelley for distributing a paper called The Necessity of Atheism . Guilt later induced Univ to accept a memorial to the poet, who drowned in Italy in 1822: the white marble monument, showing the limp body of the poet borne by winged lions and mourned by the Muse of Poetry, occupies a shrine-like domed chamber in the northeast corner of the Front Quad. The college's most famous recent alumnus was Bill Clinton, the non-inhaling Rhodes Scholar; former Australian premier Bob Hawke also studied here. Magdalen College Doubling back to the High Street from Merton College, it's a short walk east to Magdalen College (pronounced "Maudlin"; Mon-Fri noon-6pm, Sat & Sun 2-6pm; £2; tel 01865/276000), dominated by its chunky medieval bell tower. The college is entered via a grand Victorian gateway, just beyond which is the Chapel , which has a handsome reredos - though you have to admire it from a distance, from behind a stone screen. The adjacent cloisters , arguably the finest in Oxford, are adorned by standing figures, some of which are biblical and others folkloric - most notably the cacophony of bizarre grotesques. Magdalen also boasts better grounds than most other colleges, with a bridge - at the back of the cloisters - spanning the River Cherwell to join Addison's Walk , which you can follow along the river and around a water meadow; rare wild fritillaries flower there in spring. Magdalen's alumni include Oscar Wilde, C.S. Lewis, John Betjeman, Julian Barnes, A.J.P. Taylor and Dudley Moore. Just beyond the college, you can rent punts at Magdalen Bridge ; opposite, on the other side of High Street, are the Botanic Gardens (daily: April-Sept 9am-5pm; Oct-March 9am-4.30pm; glasshouses: April-Sept 10am-4.30pm; Oct-March 2-4pm; £2), bounded by a graceful curve of the Cherwell. First planted in 1621, the gardens are on the site of a medieval Jewish cemetery and predate all others in the country. Merton College At the east end of the University College, narrow Logic Lane threads through to Merton College (Mon-Fri 2-4pm, Sat & Sun 10am-4pm; free; tel 01865/276310), historically the city's most important college. University college may have been founded earlier, but it was Merton - opened in 1264 - which set the model for colleges in both Oxford and Cambridge, being the first to gather its students and tutors together in one place. Furthermore, unlike the other two, Merton retains some of its original medieval buildings with the best of the thirteenth-century architecture clustering around Mob Quad , a charming courtyard with mullioned windows and Gothic doorways. The quad's Library is of interest too, built in the 1370s and the first library in England to store books upright on shelves as distinct from in piles. Much of the woodwork, including the panelling, screens and bookcases, dates from the Tudor period, but some fittings are original and there's a small display on one of the college's most distinguished alumni, Max Beerbohm. The adjacent Chapel is earlier, dating from 1290, and has never had a nave, leaving the transepts as ante-chapels in which a curious monument shows Thomas Bodley (founder of Oxford's most important library) surrounded by masculine-looking women in classical garb. Other famous Merton alumni include T.S. Eliot, Angus Wilson, Louis MacNeice and Kris Kristofferson New College From Magdalen College along the High Street to Queen's, cut up Queen's Lane and you'll dog-leg your way north to New College (daily: April-Oct 11am-5pm; Nov-March 2-4pm; £2, free in winter; tel 01865/279555). Founded in 1379, the college has splendid Perpendicular Gothic architecture in its Front Quad , even if the addition of an extra storey in 1674 spoiled the overall effect. The Chapel has been mucked about, too, yet it can still lay claim to being the finest in Oxford, not so much for its design as its contents. The ante-chapel contains some superb fourteenth-century stained glass and the west window - of 1778 - holds an intriguing (if somewhat unsuccessful) Nativity scene based on a design by Sir Joshua Reynolds. Beneath it, shoved up against the wall, stands the wonderful Lazarus by Jacob Epstein - Khrushchev, after a visit to the college, claimed that the memory of this haunting sculpture kept him awake at night. Notable New College alumni include the Labour Party leader Hugh Gaitskell, Tony Benn and the author John Fowles. An archway on the east side of the Front Quad leads through to the grounds, a pleasant lawn skirted by the best-preserved part of the thirteenth-century city walls . You can leave the college either through the north entrance into Holywell Street, or back the way you came and into New College Lane. Both are close to the east end of Broad Street. Sheldonian Theatre and The Bodleian Library The east end of Broad Street abuts some of Oxford's most monumental architecture, beginning with the Sheldonian Theatre (Mon-Sat 10am-12.30pm & 2-4.30pm; winter closes 3.30pm; tel 01865/277299; £1.50), ringed by a series of glum-looking, pop-eyed classical heads. The Sheldonian was Christopher Wren's first major work, a reworking of the Theatre of Marcellus in Rome, semi-circular at the back and rectangular at the front. It was conceived in 1663, when the 31-year-old Wren's main job was as professor of astronomy. Designed as a stage for university ceremonies, nowadays it also functions as a concert hall, but the interior, painted in gold and a dull brown, lacks any sense of drama, and even the views from the cupola are disappointing. Wren's colleague, Nicholas Hawksmoor, designed the Clarendon Building , a domineering, solidly symmetrical edifice topped by allegorical figures that is set at right angles to - and lies immediately east of - the Sheldonian. The Clarendon was built to house the University Press, but is now part of the Bodleian Library - the UK's largest after the British Library in London - which has an estimated eighty miles of shelves distributed among various buildings. The heart of the Bodleian is located straight across from the Clarendon in the Old Library , which inhabits the beautifully proportioned Old Schools Quadrangle , built in the early seventeenth-century in the ornate Jacobean-Gothic style that distinguishes many of the city's finest buildings. On the quad's east side is the handsome Tower of the Five Orders , which gives a lesson in architectural design, with tiers of columns built according to the five classical styles - Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite. On the west side is the library's main entrance and, although most of the complex is out of bounds to the general public, you can pop into the Divinity School (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm, Sat 9am-12.30pm; free). Begun in 1424, and sixty years in the making, the Divinity School boasts an extravagant vaulted ceiling, a riot of pendants and decorative bosses that comprise an exquisite example of late Gothic architecture. However, this elaborate design was never carried right through - funding was a constant problem - and parts of the school were finished off in a much plainer style with the change being especially pronounced on the south wall. You can also sign up for an hour-long guided tour (March-Oct Mon-Fri 10.30am, 11.30am, 2pm & 3pm, Sat 10.30am & 11.30am; £3.50) of Convocation House , adjacent to the Divinity School, and Duke Humfrey's Library , immediately above. The former is a sombre wood-panelled chamber graced by a fancy fan-vaulted ceiling, completed in 1759 but designed to look much older, while the latter is distinguished by its painted beams and carved corbels, dating from the fifteenth century, but restored and remodelled by Thomas Bodley at the turn of the seventeenth century. Behind the Old Schools Quadrangle rises Oxford's most imposing - or vainglorious - building, the Bodleian's Radcliffe Camera (formerly the Radcliffe Library; no public access), a mighty rotunda, built between 1737 and 1748 by James Gibbs, architect of London's St Martin-in-the-Fields church. Gibbs was one of the few British architects of the period to have been trained in Rome and his rotunda was thoroughly Italian in style, its limestone columns ascending to a delicate balustrade, decorated with pin-prick urns and encircling a lead-sheathed dome. For a less overpowering perspective, climb the tower of the church of St Mary the Virgin (daily: July & Aug 9am-7pm; rest of year 9am-5pm; £1.60) to the rear of the rotunda. The views can't be bettered, both across to the rotunda and east over All Souls College (Mon-Fri 2-4.30pm; free; tel 01865/279379), with its twin mock-Gothic towers (the work of Hawksmoor) and a coloured sundial designed by Wren. South from Carfax and Christ Church College Spreading down St Aldates from the Carfax, Oxford's Town Hall is an ostentatious Victorian confection that reflects a municipal determination not to be overwhelmed by the university. A staircase on its south side gives access to the Museum of Oxford (Tues-Fri 10am-4pm, Sat 10am-5pm, Sun noon-4pm; £1.50), which makes good use of photographs to tell the history of the city. In the face of tough competition this museum often gets ignored, but you'll discover far more here than at the "Oxford Story" in Broad Street. Just down from the museum, the Tom Tower, added by Christopher Wren to house the weighty "Great Tom" bell in 1681, marks the main entrance to Christ Church College (Mon-Sat 9.30am-5.30pm, Sun 11.30am-5.30pm; £4; tel 01865/276492), Oxford's largest, most prestigious and - some would say - most pretentious college. Albert Einstein, William Gladstone and no fewer than twelve other British prime ministers were educated here, and it claims the distinction of having been founded three times, firstly by Cardinal Wolsey in 1525, then by Henry VIII after the cardinal's fall from favour and finally, after the Reformation - when the second college was suppressed - in 1545, when it assumed its present name. Beyond the main entrance is the striking Tom Quad , the largest quad in Oxford, so large in fact that the Royalists penned up their mobile larder of cattle here during the Civil War. The Quad's soft, honey-coloured stone makes a harmonious whole, but it was built in two main phases with the southern side dating back to Wolsey, the north finally finished in the 1660s. A staircase in the southeast corner of the quad reaches the dining hall , the grandest refectory in Oxford with a fanciful hammer-beam roof and a set of stern portraits of past scholars by a roll-call of well-known artists, including Reynolds, Gainsborough and Millais. A passage at the northeast corner of the Tom Quad leads through to the Peckwater Quad , the site of the library, and from here you can pass through to the Canterbury Quad , where the Picture Gallery provides a pokey home for works by many of Italy's finest artists, from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries, including Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. To the rear of the Tom Quad stands the Cathedral , which is also - in a most unusual arrangement - the college chapel. The site was originally occupied by the Anglo-Saxon church of St Frideswide Priory, but this disappeared long ago and the present structure is essentially Norman, though it has been hacked at - Wolsey destroyed part of the west end to make space for the Tom Quad and Sir Gilbert Scott made further alterations in 1870. The Norman legacy is most apparent in the choir, where massive Norman columns rise to delicate fifteenth-century stone vaulting. Much fine medieval carving and several impressive tombs have also survived here, most notably the shrine of St Frideswide, by the Lady Chapel. A window in the adjacent Latin Chapel depicts the life of the saint, an early work by Pre-Raphaelite luminary Edward Burne-Jones - and one of several windows he completed in the choir. Leaving Christ Church by the south entrance, you emerge at the top of Christ Church Meadow , which fills in the tapering gap between the rivers Cherwell and Thames. Head east along Broad Walk for the Cherwell or keep straight down tree-lined (and more appealing) New Walk for the Thames. Alternatively, if you stroll west, past the tiny War Memorial Garden, you quickly return to St Aldates, from where it's another short hop to Pembroke Street's Museum of Modern Art or MOMA (Tues-Sun 11am-6pm, till 9pm on Thurs; sometimes closed between exhibitions, call 01865/722733; £2.50, free till 1pm on Wed & from 6pm on Thurs). The gallery has an excellent programme of temporary exhibitions, featuring international contemporary art in a wide variety of media; the basement café serves good vegetarian food, too. Trinity and Exeter Colleges On Broad Street, the classical heads that shield the Sheldonian continue along the front of the modest History of Science Museum (Tues-Sat noon-4pm; free), where microscopes and early calculators are immaculately displayed alongside Islamic and European astrolabes. Across the street, Trinity College (daily 10.30am-noon & 2-4pm; £2; tel 01865/279900) sits back from the road behind trim gardens, its attractive ensemble of old stone buildings begun at the end of the seventeenth century. The expansive Front Quad holds the college's architectural pride and joy, its Chapel , where Grinling Gibbons did some of his finest carving - a distinctive performance, with cherubs' heads peering out from delicate foliage. Recent alumni include Richard Burton, Terence Rattigan and the Labour Party politician, Anthony Crosland. From the south side of Broad Street, take Turl Street and you'll soon reach the entrance to Exeter College (daily: term-time 2-5pm; otherwise 10am-5pm; free; tel 01865/279600), another medieval foundation whose original buildings were chopped about in the nineteenth century. On this occasion, however, the Victorians did create something of interest in the elaborate, neo-Gothic Chapel , whose intricate, almost fussy detail was conceived by Sir Gilbert Scott in the 1850s. The chapel contains a superb Pre-Raphaelite tapestry, the Adoration of the Magi , a fine collaboration between William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. Morris and Burne-Jones were both students here, as were J.R.R. Tolkien, Alan Bennett and Imogen Stubbs. Near the west end of Broad Street, the Oxford Story (daily: April-June, Sept & Oct 9.30am-5pm; July & Aug 9.30am-5.30pm; Nov-March Mon-Fri 10am-4.30pm, Sat & Sun 10am-5pm; £6) is a purpose-built tourist attraction devoted to the history of the city and its university. It begins with an audio-visual display on university life and thereafter you hop on a "time-car", which moves through a series of historical dioramas; the same people designed the Jorvik Viking Centre in York. Broad Street leads into the pedestrianized Cornmarket , a busy shopping strip lined by major stores that cuts back to the Carfax. |
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