With its hallowed university colleges, idyllic meadows and inviting alehouses, Oxford is one of those cities that you can enjoy just by strolling around and stopping wherever the mood takes you.
But, more than most cities, Oxford is also a place where a guided walking tour reaps dividends.
That building you barely gave a second glance to? Something world-shatteringly significant happened there.
That pub you just breezed past? Some very famous people used to drink there.
Shedding light on the history, architecture and graduates of Oxford is Jeremy Allen, a tour guide who is also an actor, writer, presenter and director of Yonder Cloud Theatre Company, which he co-founded in 2020.
“Good morning,” he says cheerfully, waiting for us on Broad Street, one of the city’s key thoroughfares, flanked by shops and hotels but dominated by the imposing, caramel-toned buildings of Balliol College, one of the oldest and most esteemed institutions under the umbrella of Oxford University.
Established by nobleman John I de Balliol, whose ancestors arrived during the Norman Conquest of England, the college dates from AD 1263 with notable alumni including Graham Greene, Aldous Huxley and Boris Johnson, all renowned for their penchant for fiction.
Johnson, of course, was also the UK’s prime minister (and Jeremy shares some interesting anecdotes about his student years from the 1980s, when he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Classics before entering journalism, novel writing and politics).
Our walk takes in tucked-away courtyards and alleys that you might miss if you were on your own.
Ambling along narrow, winding Queen’s Lane, Jeremy pauses outside St Edmund Hall, founded in AD 1278 and affectionately known as “Teddy Hall”. Its honorary fellows include the comedian Stewart Lee and the current UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who did a postgraduate civil law degree here in 1986 — when Johnson, his future bete noire, was at Balliol.
Seeing today’s fresh-faced youths passing us on foot and on bicycles, I can’t help but wonder if any will be among the next generation of leaders.
Though trends and fashions have changed in recent decades, whether they’re reading law, English or PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) — previous Oxford graduates in that field include ex-prime ministers David Cameron, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak — many students can still be found sipping, mingling and debating in Oxford’s watering holes.
Moving towards the High Street, we pass Queen’s Lane Coffee House, one contender for England’s oldest continuously-operating coffee house. It was opened in 1654 by a Syrian-Jewish immigrant, Cirques Jobson, and moved to its current address in 1970.
Conversations and cups of caffeinated drinks are stirring inside as we pass, crossing the High Street towards The Grand Cafe, which claims even older roots, tracing its origins to a coffee house opened in 1651 by another Jewish immigrant, this one from Lebanon.
Now with its own premises and attractive shopfront, the cafe was initially trading inside The Angel, one of Oxford’s erstwhile coaching inns. That went out of business in the Victorian age, its demise accelerated by the arrival of the railways.
But this city isn’t short of atmospheric alternatives for a drink, a bite to eat and a chat. Jeremy leads us along a secluded passageway to The Turf Tavern, outside which is a board chalked with the names of well-known former punters.
Boris Johnson is there, naturally, as are other celebrities and one-time Oxford students such as Oscar Wilde, Stephen Hawking and Emma Watson, who shot the scenes in the city, playing Hermione Granger, in the Harry Potter movies, and later started a masters degree in creative writing.
Bob Hawke, meanwhile, merits his own board at The Turf. Taking a break from his PPE studies in Oxford, Australia’s future prime minister downed a yard of ale (1.4 litres) at The Turf in 11 seconds — a then-world-record time.
“It was possibly his greatest achievement,” says a smiling Jeremy, who leads us along other quaint, alluringly-titled nooks like Logic Lane and Magpie Lane, the latter inspiring the name of a local folk band that pen and play songs about Oxford and Oxfordshire.
Magpie Lane was also the title — and one of the settings — of Lucy Atkins’ 2020 novel, a psychological drama that lifts the lid on the secrets and conventions of Oxford’s academia.
Passing more illustrious colleges and libraries, Jeremy alerts us to buildings designed by those great English architects of the 17th and 18th centuries, Christopher Wren and Nicholas Hawksmoor.
He points out where other famous figures lived and studied. We hear about actor Richard Burton, the runner and scientist Roger Banister, internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee, writers, poets and performers like Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Betjeman, Rowan Atkinson, Michael Palin and Richard Curtis.
As church bells chime, Jeremy tells us about the friendship between two other legendary wordsmiths, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, who both studied and lectured in Oxford.
Towards the end of this absorbing tour, Jeremy takes us through another alley, St Mary’s Passage. Here he stops to show us a doorway adorned with a lion’s head knocker and two fauns. (A faun is a mythological creature, with a human head and torso and a goat’s legs and a tail.)
If, like me, you’re a fan of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, the most vaunted of C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles Of Narnia, it’s hard not to think of Aslan, the lion, and Mr Tumnus, the faun.
Jeremy says C.S. Lewis mined details of the city’s buildings to create his Narnia fantasy world and it’s claimed that he first clasped eyes on this particular doorway one snowy Oxford evening.
The veracity of that particular yarn is, like most things in Oxford, up for debate. But what’s undeniable is that no matter how often you visit this city, every time you come, you’ll discover something new and fascinating. It really is that kind of place.
+ Steve McKenna was a guest of Visit Britain and Experience Oxfordshire. They have not influenced this story, or read it before publication. fact file + Oxford is around an hour from London by rail, with regular services to and from Paddington and Marylebone stations. See nationalrail.co.uk for times and tickets. + Book one of the Oxford Official Walking Tours, such as its two-hour Oxford University & City option, which usually runs several times daily. It’s £28 ($58) for adults and £22 ($46) for seniors and students, with additional reductions for children depending on their age. See oxfordofficialwalkingtours.org + Located on Broad Street in a converted former department store, The Store has rooms from around £200 ($414) per night. See thestoreoxford.com + To help plan a trip to Oxford and Britain, see experienceoxfordshire.org and visitbritain.com
https://thewest.com.au/travel/strolling-through-the-amazing-history-of-oxford-c-19994698
