Known as the ‘city of dreaming spires’, Oxford is home to the oldest university in the English speaking world and lies on the banks of the Thames, though here it is known as the Isis. Surrounded by the glorious Oxfordshire countryside, the city is approximately 90 kilometres north-west of London and is one of England’s major tourist destinations.
Its history goes back to Saxon times, when it was a fording place on the Thames for ox drovers. The city began with the foundation of St. Frideswide’s nunnery in the 8th century and by the 13th century four colleges had been founded. More were to come over the centuries, right up to the 20th, with 5 women’s colleges being built at the end of the 19th century. Most of the colleges are within an easy walk of the High Street. Christ Church, with Oxford Cathedral as its chapel, is the largest college; Magdalen the most beautiful; Merton, with its medieval library, has the oldest surviving buildings; and five of the colleges, St. John’s, Trinity, Worcester, New College and Wadham, vie with each other for the most lovely gardens. Other university buildings not to be missed are the Bodleian Library in Radcliffe Square, built in 1602 and containing over five million books, including a 7th century manuscripts of ‘The Acts of the Apostles’, and the domed and circular Radcliffe Camera, the main reading room of the library; the Ashmolean Museum, with its superb collection of paintings and relics including a gold and enamel jewel, thought to have belonged to King Alfred, and the lantern carried by Guy Fawkes; and the Sheldonian Theatre with its green-domed cupola, built in 1669 by the young Christopher Wren, where degree ceremonies and concerts are held. Best views of Oxford can be had from the tower of St Mary the Virgin University Church, which is mentioned in the Domesday Book. Archbishop Cranmer was burned at the stake outside the church in 1556, for refusing to recant his heretical, Protestant, beliefs. A Victorian Martyrs’ Memorial, commemorating the martyrdom of Archbishop Cranmer, along with Bishops Latimer and Ridley, stands at one end of St Giles. The rivers have made Oxford what it is today, providing punting, boating, bathing and fishing. They flow through flat land bordered by pollarded willow trees, and where the Isis narrows, boat races take place.
Other sites, in the city, worthy of mention:
The University Botanic Gardens, opposite Magdalen College, founded in 1621 and England’s first ‘teaching garden’ where plants were grown for scientific study. Exotic plants are grown in glasshouses lining the River Cherwell near Magdalen Bridge.
The Museum of Oxford, housed in the Victorian Town Hall, uses photographs and models to guide you through the city’s history.
The Oxford Story, in Broad Street, has life-size models of statesmen and monarchs, martyrs and scholars, to re-create the university’s past.
The Carfax Tower, all that remains of St Martin’s Church, which stands at the central crossroads of the old city.
The University Museum, which has life-size dinosaur models and dodo relics as well as other natural history collections.
Other places of interest within 30 kilometres:
Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, built for the 1st Duke of Marlborough and birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill.
Dorchester, on the River Thame near its junction with the Thames, a beautiful town with history going back to the Bronze Age, has a splendid late-Norman abbey with 13th century glass and a 12th century lead font.
Waddesdon Manor, 19th century estate with a magnificent house and grounds in the style of a 16th century French chateau.
Ewelme, a small village with connections to Jerome K Jerome, author of ‘Three Men in a Boat’, who is buried in the local churchyard. The village school was built in 1437 and there are ancient almhouses built around a cobbled courtyard.
Did you know that – Oxford’s cathedral is the smallest in Britain?
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