Oxford University

Oxford: The University Town

Oxford has been a centre of learning since the 12th century, making it one of the oldest universities in the English-speaking world. The university is not a single campus but a federation of 38 colleges distributed across the city, each autonomous and self-governing, with the university providing examinations and degrees. Visitors see the colleges rather than a university — most have quadrangles, chapels, gardens, and halls that are partly accessible to the public during certain hours.

What to Actually Visit

Christ Church is the most visited college: the Tom Tower gateway by Christopher Wren (1682) opens onto a large quadrangle, and the Great Hall — the model for the Hogwarts dining hall in the Harry Potter films — is open for viewing outside meal times. The Christ Church Picture Gallery has a small but significant collection of Old Master drawings. Entry to Christ Church costs around £16 for adults.

The Bodleian Library complex includes the Divinity School (completed 1488), the oldest examination room in the university, with a fan-vaulted stone ceiling that remains one of the most ornate in England. Entry to the Divinity School is free during library hours. The rest of the Bodleian’s historic buildings require a paid tour or exhibition ticket. The Radcliffe Camera, the circular library visible from the High Street, is a reading room and not generally open to visitors, but it’s the most photographed building in Oxford from the outside.

The Ashmolean on Beaumont Street is Britain’s oldest public museum (opened 1683) and has one of the better university art collections outside London: Egyptian antiquities, Greek and Roman sculpture, Raphael drawings, and the Alfred Jewel — a 9th century piece of Anglo-Saxon goldsmithing found in Somerset.

The Pitt Rivers Museum, accessible through the University Natural History Museum, holds an anthropological collection assembled since 1884 in a Victorian display style that hasn’t significantly changed: cases packed with objects from almost every culture on earth, organised by type rather than geography. The shrunken heads are there; the collection context is considerably more complex and interesting than that one exhibit.

Punting

Hiring a punt on the Cherwell River from the Magdalen Bridge boathouse or Cherwell Boathouse is genuinely pleasant in good weather. Most people are terrible at it initially; the punts are stable enough to survive this. The Cherwell runs past the Botanic Garden and through the meadows behind Magdalen College. £25-30 per hour is the typical rate for self-hire.

Eating

The Covered Market off the High Street has been a working food market since 1774 and has bakers, butchers, cheese sellers, and several cafe counters that make decent breakfasts and lunches. The Turf Tavern, reached through a medieval alley off Holywell Street, is a pub of genuine age (parts date to the 13th century) with a good range of real ales and unremarkable food. Both are worth knowing about.

Oxford is 60 miles from London by the M40, or 55-60 minutes by train from Paddington.