Literary (and not-so-literary) Oxford Scavenger Hunt

While you’re there, read Lewis’s “Meditation in a Toolshed.” In 1924, Lewis read Samuel Alexander’s Space, Time, and Deity in these gardens and was very impressed. He recorded in his diary that he was “greatly interested by [Alexander’s] truthful antithesis of enjoyment and contemplation” – a pair of ideas that would prove to be central to Lewis’s mature thinking. In Surprised by Joy (1955), he referred to this distinction as “an indispensable tool of thought.” (In “Meditation in a Toolshed” (1945), Lewis explains the distinction in terms of “looking at” and “looking along.”)

Owen Barfield was an undergraduate at Wadham and is said to have danced ballet in the garden. You are not required to dance, but you should think about it.

Lord David Cecil, a lesser-known Inkling, was a Fellow of Wadham from 1924—30.

Find a seat and read Lewis’s “The Weight of Glory,” which was first presented as a sermon in this church on 8 June 1941. 

Find the grave of Charles Williams. Read Tolkien's poem about Williams, pages xiii-xiv of Essays Presented to Charles Williams, and Lewis's poem "To Charles Williams."

Two other Inklings are buried in this cemetery: Hugo Dyson and Austin Farrer.

Many of these charge admission fees, but they are usually quite modest; do consider paying the £3 or so and exploring the grounds. It’s unlikely you’ll regret it.

• Balliol College (Colin Hardie was an undergraduate here)

• Exeter College (J. R. R. Tolkien, Hugo Dyson, and Nevill Coghill were undergraduates here; Coghill later became a Fellow)

• New College (Lord David Cecil was a Fellow; Christopher Tolkien was a Lecturer and Tutor)

• Pembroke College (Tolkien’s first teaching position at Oxford was here)

• Somerville College (Dorothy Sayers was an undergraduate here)

• Trinity College (the Tolkien boys were undergraduates here; Austin Farrer was chaplain)

• University College (C. S. Lewis was an undergraduate here)

At one of these establishments, read Lewis’s poem, “The Last of the Wine” (ideally, but not necessarily, out loud and at a table).

• The Eastgate Hotel (the first time Joy Davidman came to Oxford, this is where she and Jack met)

• The King’s Arms

• The Lamb and Flag

• The White Horse

• 1 Brewer Street, where Dorothy Sayers was born

• 1 Pusey Street, where the Tolkiens lived from 1918-20 (Ron was working for the Oxford English Dictionary at this time; he joined the English faculty at Leeds University in 1920 and came back to Oxford as professor of Anglo-Saxon in 1925)

• the house where Tolkien lived from 1926-30 until he and Edith decided they needed more space: 22 Northmoor Road

• the house where Tolkien lived from 1930-47 (and wrote most of LOTR): 20 Northmoor Road

• the Botanic Gardens (note that these gardens are an important location in Philip Pullman’s intentionally anti-Narnian His Dark Materials series)

• a depiction of the Nativity at the Ashmolean Museum

• an Alice in Wonderland-themed gift shoppe (hint: Lewis Carroll matriculated at Christ Church College)

• Folly Bridge; the tale that became Alice was first told on a boat trip that began here

• an antique shop

• Carfax Tower; climb to the top for a view that rivals University Church

• a used bookstore

• Blackwell’s Bookshop

• the dodo at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History

• the Bear Inn (est. 1242; Oxford’s oldest surviving pub – don’t miss the tie collection)

• The Head of the River, a nice pub right on the Thames

• the Turf Tavern (visited in fiction by Endeavour Morse of Inspector Morse and Charles Ryder of Brideshead Revisited, and in fact by U.S. President William Jefferson Clinton – there’s a rumor that this is the very place where he famously did not inhale)

• the Victoria Arms, north of Oxford on the east bank of the Cherwell – a good excuse for a lovely walk (or punting trip) 

Afternoon tea is available in many locations, of course; the Grand Café is a good choice for ambiance, if you can get a table, and the Randolph Hotel cannot be beaten for over-the-top extravagance, but really: it’s hard to go wrong.

Oxford University has been around since 1096, and since the Act of Supremacy didn’t take place until 1534, it’s not an exaggeration to say that it was a Catholic institution for well over four centuries. (Note as well that every church building constructed prior to 1534 was, eo ipso, originally Catholic.) Even in the wake of the Reformation, Oxford remained arguably the center–excuse me: the centre–of Christianity in the English-speaking world. The sites below are of particular interest from a Catholic point of view. Follow the hyperlinks for more information.

• Blackfriars Hall (on St. Giles, north of the Ashmolean and south of Pusey Street)

• Martyrs memorials: to Catholics killed by Protestants (100 Holywell Street), Protestants killed by Catholics (the Martyrs’ Memorial on St. Giles, the Martyrs’ Cross on Broad Street and the nearby inscription on the wall of Balliol College), and both (inside University Church of St. Mary the Virgin)

• The Oxford Oratory (25 Woodstock Road)

• Pusey House (St. Giles & Pusey Street)

• St. Michael at the North Gate, the oldest building in Oxford

• Trinity College (also listed above as an Inklings site), founded as a Catholic college after the Reformation, and where St. John Henry Newman studied as an undergraduate

• The following colleges predate the Reformation; they are listed in order of founding:

  • University College, 1249

  • Balliol College, 1263

  • Merton College, 1264

  • Exeter College, 1314

  • Oriel College, 1326 (Newman was a fellow and chaplain here prior to his conversion to Catholicism)

  • The Queen’s College, 1341

  • New College, 1379

  • Lincoln College, 1427

  • All Souls College, 1438

  • Magdalen College, 1458

  • Brasenose College, 1509

  • Corpus Christi College, 1517