Oxford - Examination of Schools

Bridge of Sighs

Another cold morning dawned on us in Bath. There are a lot of seagulls in Bath which strikes me as odd given its distance from the sea. Wading through gulls, we headed for the station. Some trains were running a little late, but we made it to Oxford, home of the oldest university in the UK. The hostel kindly allowed us to divest ourselves of our luggage and it was off to town.

Carfax Tower was our starting point. It is kind of hard to see from the direction we approached because there is a large shopping center in front of it. Down Cornmarket Street is what looks like the oldest house in town and the actual oldest building, a Saxon tower on the Church of St. Michael. It is about one thousand years old, and is showing its age a bit. (Of course, nothing currently standing in Houston will be upright in 1,000 years so, good work Saxons!) Broad Street has Balliol, one of the oldest colleges in the university. In the middle of the street in front of Balliol is a cross made from cobblestones marking the place where Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer, and others, were burned at the stake in 1555 for heresy. Further on is the Sheldonian Theater where we learned many of the colleges hold matriculations and other important ceremonies.

Dreaming spires

We happened to be in town on the day that several colleges awarded degrees and the streets were thronged with students draped in their short commoners’ or longer scholars’ gowns. The students have an interesting way of celebrating the achievement of a degree from one of the world’s most prestigious seats of learning – “trashing”. This involves dousing the graduate in flour, shaving cream, silly string, confetti, champagne, feathers, etc. Really.

Rather than treat / subject you to a step by step reenactment of our visit to Oxford, I’ll just group everything into related segments. The university is made up of 38 constituent colleges; we wandered broad avenues, winding paths, and cobblestone alleyways to at least 30 of these venerable institutions, nosing our way into all that were open to the public. Each school has a long and storied history, rife with traditions, alumnae of genius, and epic events of global consequence. They all cannot even be mentioned in the length of a reasonable blog post. So, here goes.

Radcliffe Camera

Library – The Bodleian is a library of legal deposit – like the library at Trinity University in Dublin. As such it is required to receive a copy of every book published in the UK – every single one. It currently has a collection of more than 11 million books. That doesn’t include all the film, digital media, prints, ephemera, etc. in its repositories. That of course isn’t why tourists queue to visit. The history and incredible beauty of the library are the draw.

The library includes the Divinity School – an early examination hall for Oxford students constructed from 1427-83. When bemoaning the excessive testing our children are subjected to today, one should bear in mind it could be worse. University students used to be called on to participate in debates with the faculty for up to three days. These examinations were open to the public, so friends, patrons, any other interested parties could show up and heckle or ask you questions also. This room features an incredibly elaborately carved ceiling. The initials of important donors are on the bosses – 455 of them. One glance upwards makes it clear why they needed so much money! 

The lawn outside Queen's College Chapel

From here we went up to what is referred to as Duke Humphry’s library. Duke Humfrey was Humphrey of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Gloucester, little brother of Henry V. He was a considerable scholar and amassed an amazing personal library. When he died in 1447, he donated his collection of 281 manuscripts to the University of Oxford. They told us that prior to this gift the university had a collection of 20 manuscripts. Duke Humfrey's Library was constructed as a second story to the Divinity School in order to house his collection in 1450-80. Today, only three of Humfrey's original books remain in the library.

The bulk of Duke Humprey’s library was destroyed during the Protestant Reformation. 45 books were saved; only 3 of these are still at Oxford. The others are in the Vatican. It was restored from 1598 by Sir Thomas Bodley, who donated his extensive personal collection and worked to collect funds and books from others. Library patron have to swear an oath to access the collection to this day.

Punting!

Chapels/ Churches- Each college has its own and those that were open to us were stunning. The University Church, which sits before the beautiful Radcliffe Camera, features gorgeous windows and a balcony of dark wood. That was the first balcony we have seen in any of these churches. There is a beautiful organ and the floor is paved with gravestones of people who died over 400 years ago. University Church has a room constructed in the 1320s with vaulted ceilings which was where the student council met. It was called the congregation room. Today it is a restaurant called The Vaults which happened to be serving a marvelous Thai yellow curry with tofu with a side of greens and potatoes. Guess what we had for lunch. Many of the churches were closed to visitors on account of the graduations being held, so we could only look in from the outside. The chapel at Merton College had maybe the best gargoyles. They were humans making rude faces at the people below.

Queen’s college chapel – Another college chapel we did get into was that of Queen’s College. They held an afternoon organ recital which was wonderful. The chapel is visually stunning with amazing windows and two banks of benches along each wall rather than pews running across. The organ in such an intimate space seems to surround you. The sun peeking through the clouds outside cast colored light on the marble floor creating a sublime atmosphere.

The site where the Martyrs were executed

Evensong – We returned to the Queen’s College chapel later in the day for an evensong service. Not to take away from the choirs and organists of St. Patrick’s and Christchurch Cathedrals, but this was the best evensong we have seen. Maybe it was just that we were practically siting with the choir, but the music was absolutely transcendent. The prelude and the voluntary were both J.S. Bach which made the service that much better. Another excitement was that the closing hymn sung by all was to the tune “Aurelia” by Samuel Sebastian Wesley, grandson of Charles Wesley. It was like a little piece of home. It is particularly moving to take part in a service that stretches back to the reformation in the place where it was developed. Archbishop Cranmer, who was martyred in front of Balliol, was the author of the Evensong order of service– a sort of combination of compline and vespers.

Outdoors – It was great! We walked along Dead Man’s Walk past the playing fields of Merton, where a giant cricket camp was in session. We watched for a while and saw that bowling takes a great deal of training. Adjacent to the playing fields are Christ Church Meadow – which is exactly what it sounds like, and on the other side are the oldest botanical gardens in the UK. These were once for medical studies, but are now just pretty. We, next headed to the water – necessary when in Oxford according to all my reading (see Gaudy Night, by Dorothy Sayers; Three Men in a Boat, by Jerome K. Jerome; absolutely see To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis). No one wanted to learn to punt on a river choked with scads of other visitors – many of whom had decided to learn just that day, so we hired a chauffeur? Gondolier? Very nice young man named Sam who had grown up in Oxford and on its waterways. It was as idyllic and enjoyable as described – I knew Dorothy would never lie to me! After our blissful break on the Cherwell, we walked from Magdalene Bridge down to Folly Bridge over the Thames. A beautiful end to a marvelous day exploring one of England’s most lovely cities.