Farnborough Hall

Entrance

The area where the borders of North Oxfordshire, South Warwickshire and Northamptonshire meet is one of the hidden gems of England with rolling wooded hills where the tail end of the Cotswolds meets the Warwickshire plain and the Burton-Dasset Hills. It is largely off the beaten track but contains rich fertile rolling farmland interspersed with river valleys, lakes and ancient villages with atmospheric stone cottages, village greens and old churches often clad in the distinctive red Hornton sandstone so characteristic of the area. So it was with a sense of anticipation I headed north on the A423 about five miles from Banbury (M40 Junc. 11, then A422, then A423) and following the signposts about half a mile on a single track road towards Farnborough Hall. The location seemed reassuringly rural and off the beaten track but the property gets only a small entry in the National Trust Handbook (confusingly listed under the “West Midlands”) and contains the endorsement “Farnborough Hall is occupied and administered by the Holbech family” so I half wondered were visitors welcome? I need not have worried because at the end of the narrow road what awaited was a wonderful welcoming property full of family artefacts lovingly displayed, marvellous but homely interiors and a garden which contains a feature of pure genius.

Garden Front

Farnborough Hall is a beautiful stone house, richly decorated in the mid-18th century, which has been the home of the Holbech family for over 300 years. The rooms, decorated with Rococo plasterwork by William Perritt, are quite outstanding and house a collection of paintings and furniture. The hall displays one of the largest collections of Roman busts. The landscaped gardens contain 18th century temples, a terrace walk and an obelisk. A superb 1740s landscaped garden remains largely unchanged, containing a broad ornamental terrace with temples.

Ice House

It is a country house just inside the borders of Warwickshire, England near to the town of Banbury, and with an Oxfordshire postcode (OX17 1DU for satnav junkies). The property has been owned by the National Trust since 1960, but is administered and occupied by the Holbech family. The Holbech family acquired the Farnborough estate in 1684 and the honey-coloured two-storey stone house was built soon after. Major changes to the property occurred between 1745 and 1750 when the entrance front was remodelled and the rococo plasterwork was added to the interior. This work was carried out by William Holbech who wanted a suitable setting for the sculpture and art he had brought back from his Grand Tour. He most likely used designs by his close friend Sanderson Miller, an architect, who lived a few miles away. Long Palladian facades with sash windows, pedimented doorways and a balustrated roofline were added to the earlier classical west front.

Hallway

Interior of Oval Pavillion

Unlike many of its contemporaries, Farnborough Hall and its landscaped gardens have experienced little alteration in the last 200 years and they remain largely as William Holbech left them. The entrance opens straight into the Italianate hall. The walls are adorned with busts of Roman emperors set into oval niches and the panelled ceiling is stuccoed with rococo motifs but for me the highpoint was the family baby grand piano with a notice saying “please play me!”. The dining room on the south front was especially designed to display works by Canaletto and Giovanni Paolo Panini. The original works are long gone, being replaced by copies. The drawing room has panels of elaborate stuccowork featuring scrolls, shells, fruit and flowers; these serve as a framework for more Italian works of art. A stucco garland of fruit and flowers encircles the skylight above the staircase hall and on the top landing a local guide explained the history whilst showing a charming collection of family cradles.

Arbour

In the mid 18th century the gardens were significantly enhanced by Sanderson Miller to dramatic effect. The land at the front of the Hall slopes downward to give a view of lake below. To the left of the house a grassy Terrace Walk is flanked by trees and excellent views of the Warwickshire plain can be had from here. The terrace leads past an Ionic temple and an oval pavilion, which has two storeys and elaborate plasterwork, to an obelisk at the end of the walk. There is a great S-shaped terrace with two temples giving outward views. As the Oxford Companion to Gardens notes 'This majestic concept was conceived in the early days of the English landscape movement and ranks with Rievaulx Terrace and Castle Howard as steps toward the landscape parks of the late eighteenth century'. However, a keen gardener told Graham Stuart Thomas that 'There is only a grass walk, and a couple of temples. There is no real garden'. The two pools at Farnborough Hall, now dredged, would give him something else to look at. A series of waterside and woodland paths have been created in the Sourlands area of the park.

Cascade

For me the gardens with their naturalistic human scale are the most satisfying I’ve ever experienced in an English country house, a judgement no doubt prejudiced by the beautiful clear May Day on which they were viewed. For the devices employed are both simple and satisfying and still impress after over 250 years. In front of the house the river had been dammed to create a scenic lake, one of five originally in the grounds of which 3 are still extant. Following the path down you come upon first an arbour and then “Grannies Rose Garden” where the roses are enclosed in box hedging. Following the path down you come to the Cascade, where an ornamental waterfall was created when the river was dammed. There was a nesting swan at the foot of the cascade looking wonderful as she turned her eggs carefully before continuing to incubate them.

Nesting Swan

But the work of genius is the naturalistic terrace which follows the contour of the land on the far side of the house. Rising gently in an “S” shape for two thirds of a mile on the contour overlooking the Hanwell Valley (which unfortunately today contains the M40 motorway) it is a 30 wide grass strip enclosed by laurel bushes on the with bastions each planted with a tree on the slope side and on the other side it has a shaded woodland return walk. You can imagine the ladies with their parasols embarking on this post prandial excursion. As you ascend the landscape and vistas unfold before you and there are punctuation marks to mark the waypoints in your perambulation. The first is a door in a wall marked “Game Larder.” On entering there is the dramatic surprise that Sanderson Miller no doubt intended. For what unfolds is a view of Farnborough Village and Church and the Game Larder has been embellished into a viewing pavillion to take in the vista. Further up the terrace you come to an Ionic Temple providing another shelter and viewpoint for it was important Georgian ladies neither sweated nor got wet! Further on you come to The Oval Pavillion which in its open base has seating and a stone table and above a delightful circular viewing room with ornate plastered walls and ceiling. Finally at the crest of the terrace walk is an imposing obelisk dating from 1751. To return you take the aptly entitled return walk which is a parallel woodland walk and on this day the woodland floor had a delightful carpet of bluebells which had replaced the daffodils of a couple of months previously. The return walk to the house also allows use of the pavilions.

Game Larder

Oval Pavillion

Ionic Temple


Obelisk

There is no catering at the house but they encourage you to stop in the (National Trust) village of Farnborough where the village hall and the community raise funds by having afternoon teas. The village has changed little since this description of 1868.

FARNBOROUGH, a parish in the Burton-Dassett division of the hundred of Kington, county Warwick, 6 miles S.E. of Kington. Banbury is its post town. The Fenny Compton station on the Great Western railway is 1 mile N. of the village. Farnborough is situated near the foot of Farnborough Hill, and the Oxford canal passes in the neighbourhood. In the Domesday Survey it is called Fernberge, and afterwards passed to the families of Say and Raleigh. The living is a vicarage* in the diocese of Worcester, value £304. The church is dedicated to St. Botolph. The parochial charities produce about £50 per annum, £40 of which are an endowment for the free school. W. Holbech, Esq., is lord of the manor. Farnborough Park is the principal residence. Here is a meet for the Warwick hounds.

The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868)

Farnborough is a delightful village but not as delightful as the cakes served in the village hall. As you enter the tablecloths, good crockery and teapots and nice chairs indicate this is a better class of tea and cake and so it proves. £1.50 buys you a masterpiece of the cake maker’s art with a wonderful selection laid out. Tea is served on proper china from generous pottery teapots. All is well in the land! The Victoria sponge is a proper eggy colour but for myself I wish to propose marriage, sight unseen, to the baker of the ginger cake with stem ginger icing! There are displays of village life all round the hall and the overriding feeling is if this is how good it is in the Shires we should all grow hairy feet and become Hobbits!

Village 1920

Farnborough Village

No doubt in 1751 William Holbech could look over his lands and admire his handsome seat filled with treasures from the Grand Tour set snugly in the midst of this fertility with the wonderful vistas created by the genius of Sanderson Millers landscaping scheme. This wonder is still there 257 years later and we owe some gratitude to the National Trust and the Holbech family that it is still there for us all to enjoy.




See also nearby Upton Hall;



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/09/upton-house-oxfordshire.html







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The Oxford Murders

Off to see the newly released movie “The Oxford Murders.” There were two impulses to see this for as my regular blogistas will know Oxford is one of my favourite places

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/04/day-in-oxford.html

and John Hurt is an actor I’ve long admired and has some Irish connections both real and putative. His elder brother Michael is a monk in Ireland and he used to live with Sara Owen in Co. Wicklow. He long thought of himself as being descended on the “wrong side of the sheet” from the Marquis of Sligo but as the BBC programme “Who do you think you are?” demonstrated this wasn’t true. The Oxford Murders is a 2008 thriller film adapted from an award-winning novel of the same name by the Argentine mathematician and writer Guillermo Martínez, directed by Álex de la Iglesia and starring Elijah Wood, John Hurt, and Leonor Watling.

The proposition of setting a mathematical thriller in Oxford is interesting and has some previous form. A mathematician and Divine of Christchurch College Oxford, Charles Dodgson published Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in 1865, under the pen-name Dodgson had first used some nine years earlier - Lewis Carroll. The texts of Lewis Carroll’s works are littered with mathematics and probability even if Alice gets some of it wrong! The most obvious example in the text where mathematics as we know it is different is when Alice tries to recall basic arithmetic facts when she first falls down the well: “Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is—oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate!” Also, whilst John Hurt’s father was an Anglican clergyman, he was a mathematician who became a clergyman, so I wouldn’t discount that John Hurt had a personal interest in this part.



The film is set in November 1993. Wood plays Martin, an American student at University of Oxford who wants Arthur Seldom (Hurt) as his thesis director. In a public lecture, Seldom quotes Wittgenstein's Tractatus to deny the possibility of truth. Martin contests this, asserting his faith in the mathematics underlining reality. Later, Martin and Seldom meet by coincidence on the steps of the house where Martin is lodging and find Martin's landlady (also a friend of Seldom's) murdered. It quickly becomes clear that hers is the first in a series of increasingly bizarre murders, with each victim’s corpse marked by strange symbols. Professor and student join forces to try and crack the code, setting into motion an elaborate game with the killer with ever-increasing stakes. As Martin gets closer to the facts, he grows increasingly unhinged from his grasp on the world around him.

Seldom declares to the police that he had received a note with his friend's address marked as "the first of a series". As Seldom is an authority on logical series, he suspects that a serial murderer is defying his intelligence. Martin, Seldom and Lorna (Leonor Watling), a Spanish nurse, will try to guess the following terms of the series as murders continue.


The characters debate several mathematical and philosophical concepts such as logical series, Heisenberg's Principle of Uncertainty, Gödel's Theorem, circles, the Vesica Piscis, the possibility of perfect crime, "Fermat"'s Last Theorem and its proof by "Professor Wiles", the Taniyama conjecture, the tetraktys and the Pythagoreans.


As you would expect in a mathematical thriller there are several twists but the final twist is one that Seldom precipitates but hadn’t anticipated – I can tell you no more – you need to see for yourself! The characters are well drawn with Hurt playing the ageing professor and Wood the gauche fresher with depth and conviction. Oxford as always provides the most theatrical of backdrops but this is not a sanitized tourist backdrop but a gritty Oxford with an undercurrent of menace. However for me the revelation was the Anglo- Spanish actress and singer Leonor Watling – where has she been all our lives? Leonor Ceballos Watling (born July 28, 1975) is a Spanish film actress and singer. Watling was born in Madrid, Spain, of Spanish and English ancestry. She began her career in theatre and made her début in films when she was 15 with Jardines Colgantes by Pablo Llorca. Lately, she combines film performances with her work in the musical band Marlango. I predict this performance will lead onto greater things.

Leonor Watling

With the amount of math’s going on the pace at times is uneven but the plot is compelling, the performances convincing and the denouement unexpected so a classic thriller well crafted and worth catching.

A Day in Oxford.

Radcliffe Camera


Christchurch Dining Hall

18 Miles from Castle Caldwell lays the city of the "Dreaming Spires", the historic University City of Oxford. For all its attractions it can be a difficult city for the first time visitor to find their way around and see the parts which capture the athmosphere and sense of purpose of this ancient seat of learning. What visitors find here is not a single University campus but a jumble of colleges, libraries, museums, fine shops and other buildings. Added to this, Oxford City Council actively tries to preserve the character of the historic centre by discouraging cars and through traffic and encouraging walking, cycling and public transport. Car restrictions are rigorously enforced, including by remote cameras, so if not arriving by train or coach it is best to use the “Park and Ride” facilities on the outskirts of Oxford or the car parks on the edge of the centre. So this ROT (Reduced Oxford Tour) is in the traditions of our

RLT Reduced London Tour http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/09/day-in-london.html

and its aim is to show you the real Oxford as cheaply as possible and keep you out of overpriced and tacky tourist attractions. But, before the ROT, some history to put it all into context.



"The Dreaming Spires"


Oxford, is famous the world over for its University and place in history. For over 800 years, it has been a home to royalty and scholars, and since the 9th century an established town, although people are known to have lived in the area for thousands of years. Nowadays, the city is a bustling cosmopolitan town, still with its ancient University, but home also to a growing hi-tech community. Many businesses are located in and around the town, whether on one of the Science and Business Parks or within one of a number of residential areas.

The origins of Oxford are not actually known with any certainty, being as they are, shrouded in the mists of time, but various ideas have been submitted (and disputed) regarding its genealogy. Medieval historian, John Rous wrote in his 1490 work, “Historium Regum Angliae”, that Oxford was originally King Mempricius' city, Caer-Memre, built on the River Thames somewhere between 1400 and 1500 BC. However, other historians from Rous' time were more inclined to support the popular legend that Oxford was in fact founded by the Trojans, after they landed on British soil in around 1100 BC.


View towards Magdalen

Although the town of Oxford itself supported the Parliamentary cause in the English Civil War, the powerful University was staunchly Royalist and, as a result, the city served as a home base for King Charles during the period. Specifically, the University housed King Charles at Christ Church College between 1642 and 1646, while Queen Henrietta Maria stayed at Merton.

Firmly established as an academic centre by the 13th century, Oxford was drawing students from across Europe for studies focused on houses established by the Dominicans (1221), Franciscans (1224), Carmelites (1256), and Augustinians (1267). History records a rocky relationship between the city of Oxford and the University of Oxford. Resentment towards the University on the city's part stemming, not least, from the scholars' legal precedence over the town. Until the 20th century the Chancellor of the University had the legal right to trial over townsfolk, and it was only in 1974 that the university lost the right to place its own representatives on the Oxford City Council. In fact, the 'Town and Gown' of Oxford have experienced a rather violent past with one of the most infamous outbreaks of rioting happening on St. Scholastrica's Day (February 10) in 1354.


Christchurch Cloisters


Merton Lane

Oxford is the oldest university in the English-speaking world and lays claim to nine centuries of continuous existence. As an internationally renowned centre for teaching and research, Oxford attracts students and scholars from across the globe, with almost a quarter of the students from overseas. More than 130 nationalities are represented among a student population of over 18,000. Oxford is a collegiate university, with 39 self-governing colleges related to the University in a type of federal system. There are also seven Permanent Private Halls, founded by different Christian denominations. Thirty colleges and all halls admit students for both undergraduate and graduate degrees. Seven other colleges are for graduates only; one has Fellows only, and one specializes in part-time and continuing education.


Oxford; Colleges & Halls

The early seats of learning were monastic foundations and it is this monastic model which is so effectively reflected in the layout and operations of the colleges today which have cloisters, a chapel and a dining hall and college gardens or water meadows by the Thames (called the Isis where it flows through Oxford) or the Cherwell. What is also confusing for visitors is that the colleges don’t look like campuses elsewhere. In Oxford or Cambridge the teaching method is not the same as at other universities with few lecture halls. Rather students are taught in small tutorial groups or one to one by tutors in their rooms. Also students can attend tutorials or use facilities at several colleges not just their own. It is the uniqueness of this teaching method, the size and tradition of the academic community, the great resources and facilities available which makes an education at Oxford (and Cambridge) so special and so prized in the academic world. So now let us embark on the ROT!

For the ROT I’m going to restrict your tour to a large and small college, Magdalen and Brasenose and the centre of the University area but you could just as well take other colleges (Christchurch and Balliol) and do a similar tour. To do this tour if you are travelling by car you come into Oxford on the A420 which leads to the M40 Motorway and London. Park in the Park & Ride on the outskirts or before coming to Magdalen Bridge and its roundabout, park in the Council “pay and display” car park signposted on the right. Now take a gentle stroll towards the centre across the Cherwell on Magdalen Bridge into High Street. Ahead of you on the right you will see the tower and buildings of Magdalen College, on the left the Oxford Botanic Gardens and as you cross over the Cherwell you will see a boathouse with punts for hire.




Punts on the Cherwell

Magdalen College (pronounced 'Maudlin') has a reputation as one of Oxford's most beautiful colleges, and rightly so. The famous Great Tower (by William Reynolds) stands sentinel beside Magdalen Bridge and inside the college you will find peaceful cloister gardens, riverside walks and a deer park where a herd of fallow deer has been kept for over 300 years. Each year on 1st May, Magdalen is the scene of the beginning of Oxford's traditional May Morning celebrations. Crowds gather on Magdalen Bridge to welcome in the spring and, at 6am sharp, Magdalen Choristers sing madrigals to the hushed crowds below.


Magdalen Tower

Make sure to go into the College (An admission fee is payable) and follow the guide to see the chapel, dining hall, cloisters and the delightful deerpark and gardens at the back of the college. There is also a pleasant well run snack bar (called a Buttery in Oxford) by the river where you can watch the punts go by. The River Cherwell reaches the northern outskirts of Oxford and runs south on the eastern edge of north Oxford town centre. Near Summertown it passes the Victoria Arms (or "Vicky Arms"), a popular riverside pub at Marston and then under a modern bridge that is part of Marston Ferry Road. A little further south, the Cherwell passes Wolfson College (a graduate college of Oxford University), the Cherwell Boathouse (where punts can be hired) and the playing fields of the Dragon School. Next is Lady Margaret Hall, one of the previously all-women's Oxford colleges.


Magdalen College Chapel


Magdalen Cloisters

The river is then flanked by University Parks and passes under Rainbow Bridge. Parson's Pleasure and Dame's Delight used to provide nude bathing facilities for male and female bathers respectively, but both are now defunct. Below the Parks, the river splits into up to three streams, with a series of islands. One is Mesopotamia, which is a long thin island just south of the Parks with a path that provides a pleasant walk. At the northern end, there are punt rollers next to a weir. St Catherine's College is on the largest island formed by the split of the river. It also flows past Magdalen College.


Punting on the Cherwell

The river conjoins again into two streams close together to flow under Magdalen Bridge. The river splits again past the bridge. To the west is the Oxford Botanic Garden. The river then skirts Christ Church Meadow before flowing into the River Thames (or Isis) through two branches. On the island in between these branches are many of the college boathouses for rowing on the Thames. In summer, punting is very popular on the Oxford stretch of the Cherwell. (A punt is a long flat bottom boat which is propelled by means of a pole pushed against the river bed.) Punts are typically hired from a punt station by Magdalen Bridge or the Cherwell Boathouse (just to the north of the University Parks). It is possible to punt all the way from the Isis, north past the University Parks, and out beyond the ring road.

After Magdalen continue up the High Street and turn right through a pedestrian lane into Radcliffe Square. Radcliffe Square lies at the very heart of the old University. The round building in the centre is the Radcliffe Camera which was funded from the estate of the Royal Surgeon Dr John Radcliffe. The building was designed by James Gibbs and was completed in 1749. Originally conceived as a library of science and medicine, it is now part of the Bodleian Library and houses a collection on History and English Literature.

One of the best views of Oxford, All Souls and the Radcliffe Camera in particular, can be obtained from the top of the University Church of St Mary's spire. The University Church has been in existence since the late 13th century. In the early days of the University, the Church was a centre of administration and teaching, with the side chapels acting as lecture theatres where students studied mainly Theology. In 1556, it hosted the trial of the protestant Bishops Ridley, Cranmer and Latimer. The “Oxford Martyrs” where subsequently burnt at the stake for heresy by the Catholic Queen of England, Mary Tudor known to history as Bloody Mary. The Church is open every day and visitors can climb up the 127 stairs to the top of the spire to get another classic aerial view of Radcliffe Square and the spires of Oxford. Entrance to the church and spire is via Radcliffe Square. Surprisingly, Oxford is not well endowed with good restaurants but there is an excellent and good value Café in the cellar of St. Mary’s Church which uses organic local produce and has good loos. From the top of St Mary’s looking out over Radcliffe Square you have All Souls College on your right and the next one we are going to visit Brasenose on your left.


St. Mary the Virgin

The College of All Souls of the Faithful Departed, of Oxford, was founded by Henry VI and Henry Chichele (fellow of New College and Archbishop of Canterbury), on 20 May 1438. The Statutes provided for the Warden and forty fellows - all to take Holy Orders; twenty-four to study arts, philosophy and theology; and sixteen to study civil or canon law. Today the College is primarily an academic research institution at the University of Oxford, having strong ties to the public domain. Traditionally, there are no undergraduate members.


All Souls from St. Mary's

When you come down from St. Mary’s go to your left into one of the smaller colleges, Brasenose. The name of the College has always fascinated visitors to Oxford, and there have been several interpretations of it. The most likely is that it refers to a “brazen” (brass or bronze) door knocker in the shape of a nose. In the 1330s there was a migration of rebellious students from Oxford to Stamford in Lincolnshire, and one of the ringleaders was from Brasenose Hall. In due course the rebellion was suppressed, the king ordering the students to return to Oxford. In 1890 a house in Stamford was offered for sale; it was called “Brasenose”, and had an ancient door knocker, dated to the twelfth century. Brasenose College purchased the house for the sake of that door knocker, which was brought to Oxford and now hangs over the high table in Brasenose Hall. The College historians of the 1890s were convinced that the fourteenth century students of Brasenose Hall took the knocker from which they derived their name to Stamford, and that it had been restored to its rightful home at last.


Brasenose

Noses have been used as symbols for Brasenose College throughout its history. More than one has been placed over the main door and they can be found in the glass in Hall. The Archives have a carved nose once attached to the College Eight, a nose tie pin of the 1870s, and one of the nose pipes sold by a local tobacconist and smoked by Brasenose undergraduates in the years before the First World War. For a small college it has had many famous graduates ranging from Archbishops of Canterbury to Michael Palin. Leaving Brasenose turn left past the Radcliffe Camera towards Broad Street and you will come to the Bodleian Library and Sheldonian Theatre and pass the Bridge of Sighs.


Bodleian Library

The Bodleian Library is the main research library of the University of Oxford. It is also a copyright deposit library and its collections are used by scholars from around the world. The buildings within the central site include Duke Humfrey's Library above the Divinity School, the Old Schools Quadrangle with its Great Gate and Tower, the Radcliffe Camera, Britain’s first circular library, and the Clarendon Building. In addition, the Bodleian consists of nine other libraries, in separate locations in Oxford: the Bodleian Japanese Library, the Bodleian Law Library, the Hooke Library, the Indian Institute Library, the Oriental Institute Library, the Philosophy Library, the Radcliffe Science Library, the Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies at Rhodes House and the Vere Harmsworth Library.

On your right you will see The Bridge of Sighs which joins the two sections of Hertford College located on either side of New College Lane. Modeled on the famous Ponte dei Sospiri in Venice, it has become one of Oxford's most photographed buildings and is well known from “Inspector Morse” and other programmes and films. But its construction was vehemently opposed when it was built in 1913, not least by the Fellows of New College who thought it would spoil the views of their college from the Sheldonian Theatre. The original bridge in Venice gets its name from the sighs of the prisoners being led to their execution.


The Bridge of Sighs

The Sheldonian Theatre is the centre for University ceremonials and another creation of Sir Christopher Wren. This is well worth a visit, not just to see the Vice Chancellor's elaborately carved throne and painted ceiling, but also to take in the spectacular aerial views of Oxford's spires and domes from the rooftop cupola. The Broad Street entrance to the Sheldonian Theatre is notable because of the carved heads, or terms, that tower above the railings. Often referred to as the twelve Caesars or Apostles, they are actually anonymous but, nonetheless, curiously photogenic!


Sheldonian Theatre


Ashmolean Museum

Now walk past the Sheldonian and Blackwell’s famous University bookshop on Broad Street and turn right into St Giles at the top where it meets Cornmarket. Here you will see the Monument of the English Martyrs in St Giles. This is near the spot where the Protestant Bishops Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer (the Oxford Martyrs) were burned at the stake in 1555 and 1556 by Catholic Queen Mary. Head up St. Giles for 200 metres past the Randolph Hotel and the Ashmolean Museum on your left and Balliol and Keble Colleges on your right until on your left past St. Cross College you will come to your final destination with the promise of a traditional Morrel’s ale in the back room of the pub everybody in Oxford knows as the Bird and Baby but which the sign over the door actually calls the “Eagle and Child”!


JRR Tolkien

CS Lewis

Charles Williams
This building dates from the sixteenth century and is Grade II listed. It is popularly known as the “Bird & the Baby”, and has been a pub since 1650. Wellington Place runs along the north side of the building, and Eagle & Child Passage runs through the pub itself on the south side. From the 1930s to the 1960s the Inklings (including C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien) met in the “Rabbit Room” at the back of this pub. The Inklings were a gathering of friends -- all of them British, male, and Christian, most of them teachers at or otherwise affiliated with Oxford University, many of them creative writers and lovers of imaginative literature -- who met usually on Thursday evenings in C.S. Lewis's and J.R.R. Tolkien's college rooms in Oxford during the 1930s and 1940s for readings and criticism of their own work, and for general conversation. "Properly speaking," wrote W.H. Lewis, one of their number, the Inklings "was neither a club nor a literary society, though it partook of the nature of both. There were no rules, officers, agendas, or formal elections."


An overlapping group gathered on Tuesday (later Monday) mornings in various Oxford pubs, usually but not always the Eagle and Child, better known as the Bird and Baby, between the 1940s and 1963. These were not strictly Inklings meetings, and contrary to popular legend the Inklings did not read their manuscripts in the pub. What they have left behind are some of the most enduring works of 20th Century English literature including The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, The Chronicles of Narnia, War in Heaven, Many Dimensions, and Descent into Hell and Mere Christianity.


Inklings Snug - the “Rabbit Room”


Bird and Baby

To get an idea of the Oxford of the ‘50s and the world of the “Inklings”, watch the excellent movie “Shadowlands” where Anthony Hopkins plays C.S. Lewis. But also make sure you have a drink in the back room surrounded by their memorabilia and photos. For you have earned your drink having completed the ROT in such good style! If you are staying longer in Oxford there is much more to see; many more wonderful colleges, numerous museums and art galleries including the Ashmolean, Oxford and Pitts Rivers museums, excellent shopping, the covered market, the Oxford Canal and the riverside and water meadow walks and the rich theatrical, musical and cultural life of the town in the evenings. But whether you are staying or moving on I hope you will feel that the ROT has given you an insight into a town of dreaming spires and magnificent warm sandstone buildings which is rather special and rather wonderful



See also;

Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/11/oxfords-ashmolean-museum.htmll

Oxford Rambles

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/05/oxford-rambles.html

Pitt Rivers Museum

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/09/pitt-rivers-museum-oxford.html



Location: Oxfordshire, England


Oxford Canal

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