The City of Dreaming Spires

The gatehouse into Balliol College. I've added a bit more definition to the sky in post processing

When I was a mere slip of a lad, still but a teenager, I met a rather compelling young lady. On her 21st birthday we shared our first kiss and so it was, nine years later, that I thought it might be a good idea to take her away somewhere nice for her birthday. These are the circumstances that led us to Oxford, a city we had wanted to visit for sometime.

Oxford is just an hour from London by train and very much a part of the commuter belt. It's rather well to do and when children are chastised their parents quietly implore names such as Toby and Jemima rather than loudly screech Jamie and Stacey. Oxford was first settled in late Saxon times, in the 10th century, and you won't be surprised to hear that it got that name because it was the location of a ford through which oxen were driven. Exactly which river I'm not certain of; Oxford is where the Thames links up with one of it's major tributaries, the river Cherwell.

Like most towns of any note the Normans built their trademark motte and bailey castle to help secure the conquest, however, it was never actually used as a military installation; rather, a community of monks set up shop there. Probably it's greatest claim to fame was that this was where Geoffrey of Monmouthshire was when he wrote his Historia Regum Britanniae, the source of the King Arthur legend.

The Thames before it gets all Londoned up.

But what Oxford is undoubtedly now most famous for is it's university. The first colleges of the university; University College, Balliol and Merton, were set up in 1249, 1263 & 1264 respectively. If you just stop and think about that for a moment you may appreciate just how astonishing a fact that is. These colleges are nearly eight hundred years old. That pre-dates Henry VIII, the Hundred Years War, Geoffrey Chaucer and the entire Aztec Empire.

The history of Oxford has mostly been calm but it gets much more involved in the story of Britain in the 1640s. During the Civil War Charles I held his court in Oxford for four years until it succumbed to siege in 1646. Later his son, Charles II, would temporarily move the court back there from London to avoid the plague of 1665-6.

One common theme that seems to run through much of Oxford is the name John Radcliffe. I was already familiar with the name as there is a John Radcliffe Hospital that often sends samples to us for genetic analysis (I work in a genetics lab). But there's also a John Radcliffe Observatory, a John Radcliffe Library, a Radcliffe Quad and the John Radcliffe Camera, more of which later.

Our itinerary was vague and mostly consisted of a generalised plan to stroll through colleges, walk along the river and sit in cafes. The weather on Friday and Saturday was mixed; bouts of stormy looking clouds were interspersed with glorious sunshine. We set off into town to get a feel for the place and orientate ourselves; the centre was very much like most others in England, it had all the usual shops but they did that thing where they have to have the toned down version of their shop fronts so that most of them are nondescript greens and browns.

Our first port of call was Balliol College, pictured at the top; they certainly know how to do a good quadrangle and no mistake. Most colleges are partially or entirely restricted to the public at different times and this was no exception. The quads and chapel were accessible but not the library or grand hall, which was a pity because just as we got there it started to rain rather heavily and we could really have done with the cover.

A highlight was the Ashmolean Museum which was conveniently situated exactly opposite our hotel. This new, purpose built building was opened in 2009 by Her Majesty the Queen and has galleries on ancient Egypt and Greece, Asia and also on Europe from pre-historic times through to the Renaissance. The museum is named after Elias Ashmole who donated much of his extensive collections to the university on the proviso that they build a suitable venue for their display to the public. Ashmole was what we would probably call a polymath; his interests included alchemy, astrology and antiquities and he also found time to get involved in politics and the military and was also a founding member of the Royal Society. I tried to cover as much ground as possible in the couple of hours we had there and I could easily have spent all day there but we had to press on.

Einstein, people, Einstein

During another soaking we found ourselves diving into the Museum of the History of Science; we hadn't planned to come here, I didn't know it even existed, but I'm very glad we stumbled in. It is housed in the old Ashmolean museum building and holds an array of curiosities and instruments of science over three floors; this is what was constructed at the behest of Elias Ashmole and it remains the oldest purpose built museum in the world. It's actually quite small but packs a lot of science in for all that. For me, the most exciting item wasn't one of Marconi's first radios or a 16th century astrolabe but some chalk dust. But this chalk dust wasn't just any old chalk dust, this was left by the hand of Albert Einstein no less, a personal hero of mine. This was a blackboard he wrote on during a series of three lectures that he gave in Oxford in 1931 long after he first published his theory of Special Relativity and still a full decade before he helped unlock the power of the atom as part of the Manhattan Project. By this time, through careful observation of red shifts in the light from distant galaxies, Edwin Hubble (he of the eponymous space telescope) had proven that the universe was expanding. The equations on the board are a potential simple model to explain this. The first three lines establish an equation for D, the rate of expansion of the universe; the four lines below attempt to put numerical quantities to the expansion, density, age and radius of the universe. When I was 17 I chose to go into biology, specifically genetics, but I almost chose astrophysics. I find it endlessly fascinating and probably do more reading on that topic than almost any other so, I'll be honest, I got quite excited by this blackboard.

Okay, I'll stop being a geek now and return to Oxford.

Actually, no, I wont. I have one last bit of geekery to dispense. Before arriving in Oxford there was really only one thing that I absolutely wanted to see and that was the Bodleian Library. The library has existed in one form or another since the 14th century but has been in it's present location since 1602, that's three years before the Gun Powder Plot. After years of neglect it was given the boost it so badly needed by Sir Thomas Bodley who used his wife's fortune to set it up during his retirement. More than 400 years later the Bodleian is one of 6 libraries in the UK that is entitled to a free copy of everything published here; that includes all books, pamphlets, newspapers and magazines. The collection now extends to over 11 million items stacked onto 117 miles of shelving. Unfortunately it is not permitted for any old riff raff to just walk into this amazing building, it is mainly just for the use of students and staff of Oxford University although access can sometimes be granted by prior appointment.

One of the entrances to the Bodleian Library. I had to wait a bloody long time for there to be no people there.

Right, geekery over. One area that did lend itself to ducking for cover from rain was the indoor market which was an absolute gem. It had everything you could hope for; little boutiques that made bespoke jewellery, decent clothes shops that offered something different from the highstreet, busy little cafes and multiple butchers and bakers. The only thing it was missing was a candlestick maker. I was singularly excited to find a little milliner that was choc full of a superb range of hats; I took it upon myself to acquire a rather fetching fedora.

On Sunday we had a few hours spare before catching the train back home to London and I had the idea of walking along the river, this was quite a fortuitous decision as not only was the weather glorious but it actually led us to the most interesting parts of Oxford.

We headed for the Cherwell and followed it downstream til it's confluence with the Thames at which point it probably quadrupled in size. This was all very pleasant, we were skirting around the west and south of the city, it was quiet and green and peaceful. With the hour of our departure fast approaching though, we abandoned the river and turned north to head back into town and it was at this point that we stumbled upon Christchurch College which was, frankly, magnificent. It appeared to be much larger and more grand than the others we had seen so far and it was a pity we couldn't get inside to have a look around.

The front of Christchurch College. My school did not look like this.

Walking around the grounds led us north through the south east of the city and back up to the Bodleian Library and the John Radcliffe Camera. Now, being a bit of a camera geek and then seeing the monstrous size of this camera I was clearly going to be very excited to investigate this. Unhappily, it turns out that camera is simply the latin word for room; the John Radclife Room is not quite such an exciting prospect. That said, it is quite a structure and is, today, a part of the Bodleian. But who is this John Radcliffe and why is half of Oxford named after him? Investigations reveal that he was mostly a physician, which I suppose explains why there is a hospital named after him. When he died, in 1714, he bequeathed much of his substantial wealth to the university and St. Bart's Hospital in London; a charitable trust founded in his will still exists to this day.

Sue and I had a great time in Oxford; it's an ancient and interesting city and for a while we lived the five star lifestyle. It seems to be a city that has it's worth not in the place itself or the events that took place there but in the people that have lived there and invested so much in it. Once we were safely ensconced on the train home we did both independently admit that we preferred Cambridge although it's difficult to say why. If I'm honest, the fact that I was born there may have swayed my decision.

The John Radcliffe Room, as it should more accurately be called.