City in Oxfordshire, England
Oxford
Oxford has a university with no founding date, a bridge nicknamed after Venice's Bridge of Sighs, and a marmalade that went to Antarctica with Captain Scott.
Key information
- County
- Oxfordshire
- Nation
- England
- Population
- about 162,000 (2021 Census)
- Known for
- The University of Oxford, the Bodleian Library, dreaming spires, Inspector Morse
- What locals are called
- Oxonians
- Famous people
- J. R. R. Tolkien, Stephen Hawking, Tim Berners-Lee, Margaret Thatcher
- Football clubs
- Oxford United
About Oxford
A university that simply turned up
Nobody can say exactly when the University of Oxford began. There is no founding charter and no opening day. Teaching was going on by 1096, which makes it the oldest university in the English-speaking world. It grew quickly after 1167, when Henry II barred English students from studying at the University of Paris. Scholars came home and settled in Oxford instead. The relationship with the townspeople was rocky. On St Scholastica's Day in 1355, a row over drinks in a tavern turned into a riot that lasted for days and killed dozens of people, many of them scholars. Afterwards the town was forced to do public penance every year. The ritual carried on for nearly five centuries and was only ended in 1825.
Why the skyline is full of spires, bridges and gargoyles
The nickname "city of dreaming spires" comes from the poet Matthew Arnold, who used the phrase in the 1860s. The skyline still earns it, with the domed Radcliffe Camera, the tower of St Mary the Virgin and the great quadrangle of Christ Church. The Bodleian Library is one of the oldest libraries in Europe and a legal deposit library, which means it is entitled to a copy of every book published in the UK. Its Radcliffe Camera reading room is among the most photographed buildings in England. The Bridge of Sighs, joining two parts of Hertford College, is nicknamed after the famous Venetian bridge. It is not a copy, and it actually looks more like the Rialto, but nobody has stopped calling it that. The Ashmolean, opened in 1683, was the first university museum in the world and the first museum open to the public in Britain.
Where Narnia, Middle-earth and Morse were dreamed up
Oxford is a literary city. J. R. R. Tolkien was a professor here and wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings while teaching at Oxford. C. S. Lewis, his friend, taught at Magdalen College, and the two met with other writers in the Eagle and Child pub as the Inklings. Lewis Carroll, real name Charles Dodgson, was a mathematics lecturer at Christ Church. He invented Alice in Wonderland for Alice Liddell, the dean's daughter. The college's dining hall inspired the design of Hogwarts' Great Hall, though the film scenes were shot on a studio set. Christ Church's staircase, however, was a real filming location. Then there is Inspector Morse, the beer-loving detective created by Colin Dexter. His fictional Oxford has an improbably high murder rate, which tourists seem to enjoy.
Tweed, marmalade and a very odd sort of race
Oxford marmalade is a thick-cut variety with a name that stuck. Frank Cooper's, first made on the High Street in 1874, was taken to Antarctica by Captain Scott's expedition. The oldest coffee house in England is said to have opened in Oxford in 1650, in a building now home to The Grand Café on the High Street. The covered market, dating from 1774, still sells pies, cheese and cakes. Its traders have been a fixture in the city for more than 250 years. Then there are the traditions. Each May morning, crowds gather at dawn beneath Magdalen Tower to hear the choir sing from the top, and some people jump from Magdalen Bridge into the river. Students also row in Torpids and Summer Eights, bumps races in which boats chase each other and try to touch the one ahead rather than pass it.
Cars, firsts and the rest of the city
Not everything here is gowns and stone. Cowley, on the edge of the city, was where William Morris, later Lord Nuffield, built Morris cars from 1913, and car manufacturing is still part of the city's story, with the Mini made at Cowley today. Oxford also gave the world the Oxford English Dictionary, whose first complete edition was finished in 1928 by a team working for decades. Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. In 1941 Howard Florey and Ernst Chain led work at Oxford that turned penicillin into a usable drug. Albert Alexander, a police officer, was an early patient in the team's trials of penicillin given to treat infection throughout the body. He improved dramatically but sadly died when supplies ran out. In sport, Oxford is known for the Boat Race against Cambridge, rowed on the Thames in London, and for Roger Bannister, who ran the first sub-four-minute mile at Iffley Road track in 1954. Oxford United play at the Kassam Stadium and won the League Cup in 1986.
Related articles
The Boat Race
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Two universities, one stretch of the Thames, and a tradition of boats sinking, rebellions, a dead heat and a swimmer in the way.
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Morris Dancing
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Grown adults strap bells to their shins, whack sticks together and dance in car parks, all to keep a tradition alive that Shakespeare's clown once danced 100 miles.
C. S. Lewis
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C. S. Lewis, creator of Narnia, was born in Belfast, once taught Tolkien's pals over pints, and died the same day JFK was shot. His life was stranger than his wardrobe.
Alexander Fleming
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Stephen Hawking
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