Insight Guides Great Breaks Oxford

Insight Guides

• Publisher: Insight
• ISBN:
  9781780059969
• Edition: 3
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Travel

Whether you're on a relaxing weekend break or an active holiday, this collection of 12 irresistible walks and tours in and around the 'city of dreaming spires' is sure to appeal. Great Breaks Oxford is packed with vivid colour photographs and inspiration for things to do.

The book starts with the 10 top attractions in Oxford, including the iconic Bodleian Library and punting on the Thames, followed by essential background information on Oxford's culture, history, and food and drink. Next are 12 wonderful self-guided walks and tours taking in the best places to visit in Oxford, from the historic heart of the university to idyllic Port Meadowand beyond. The tours have clear maps, places to eat and drink, and top accommodation recommendations. The final section of the book offers a selection of listings for things to do in Oxford, with sections on active holidays (including boating and punting) and themed holidays such as walking and wildlife. There is also a practical information section and comprehensive accommodation listings.

About Insight Guides: Insight Guides has over 40 years' experience of publishing high-quality, visual travel guides. We produce around 400 full-color print guide books and maps as well as picture-packed eBooks to meet different travelers' needs. Insight Guides' unique combination of beautiful travel photography and focus on history and culture together create a unique visual reference and planning tool to inspire your next adventure.

'Insight Guides has spawned many imitators but is still the best of its type.' - Wanderlust Magazine

Tour 1: The Heart of the University

Follow in the footsteps of Harry Potter, Inspector Morse, Christopher Wren and Thomas Cranmer for an hour or two on this 0.25 mile (0.4km) stroll around the university

Highlights

Emperors’ Heads

Museum of the History of Science

Sheldonian Theatre

Bodleian Library

View from the spire of the Church of St Mary the Virgin

While the busy crossroads of Carfax is usually considered the centre of the City of Oxford (for more information, click here), the university – founded as it is on the college system – has no such focal point. Yet there is one area that, by virtue of the historic role of its buildings, can be described as the heart of the university. Lying between the High Street and Broad Street, it also represents one of the finest architectural ensembles in Europe.

Bearded Ones

At the eastern end of Broad Street, visitors are met by the intimidating gaze of the Emperors’ Heads, or ‘Bearded Ones’, which tower over the railings separating the street from the precinct of the Sheldonian Theatre. Such busts were used in antiquity to mark boundaries, but no one knows what these particular ones represent. They were installed in 1669, the same year that the theatre was completed, but over the years their features eroded so considerably that they were no longer recognisable even as faces. Facelifts were performed by a local sculptor in 1970.

Bodleian Library.

Dreamstime

One of the curious Emperors’ Heads.

Corrie Wingate/Apa Publications

The Heart of the University

Science Museum

To the right is the original home of the famous art and antiquities museum, the Old Ashmolean, before it moved to Beaumont Street (for more information, click here). Designed by Thomas Wood and completed in 1683, it is considered one of the most architecturally distinguished 17th-century buildings in Oxford.

It now contains the Museum of the History of Science 1 [map] (tel: [phone]; www.mhs.ox.ac.uk; Tue–Sun 2–5pm; free), with the world’s finest collection of European and Islamic astrolabes, as well as quadrants, sundials, mathematical instruments, microscopes, clocks and, in the basement, physical and chemical apparatus, including that used by Oxford scientists in World War II to prepare penicillin for large-scale production. Also on display in the basement is a blackboard used by Albert Einstein in the second of his three Rhodes Memorial Lectures on the Theory of Relativity, which he delivered at Rhodes House, Oxford, on 16 May 1931. Part of the basement was once used as a dissecting room, and set into the stone floor you can see a number of small holes. The legs of the dissection table were slotted into these holes to keep the table still while professors and students worked on the corpses. The museum also runs a programme of talks, guided tours and workshops. See the website for details of family events where you can look through old telescopes or take part in scientific experiments.

Original University Press

The imposing neoclassical edifice to the left of the heads is Nicholas Hawksmoor’s Clarendon Building, erected in 1715 – erstwhile home of Oxford University Press. The OUP’s first home was the basement of the Sheldonian Theatre, but this was far from ideal, as compositors had to move out every time the theatre was required for a ceremony. However, between 1702 and 1704 the Press published its first bestseller, Lord Clarendon’s History of the Rebellion, and subsequent profits enabled the University to erect this new building. The Press moved out of the Clarendon to its present site on Walton Street (for more information, click here) in 1830, but the building is still used for meetings of the Delegates of the Press, the University committee that directs its affairs. Around the roofline are James Thornhill’s sculptures of the nine Muses.

Sheldonian Theatre

Through the gateway is the Sheldonian Theatre 2 [map] (tel: [phone]; www.sheldon.ox.ac.uk; Mon–Sat 10am–4.30pm, also Sun until 3pm, though times can vary depending on functions, May−Sept, Dec−Jan). Commissioned by Gilbert Sheldon, Chancellor of the University, in 1662, this was Christopher Wren’s first architectural scheme, which he designed at the age of 30, while still a professor of astronomy. Modelled on the ancient open-air Theatre of Marcellus in Rome, but roofed over to take account of the English weather, the Sheldonian was built primarily as an assembly hall for more or less elaborate university ceremonies. Chief among these is the Encaenia – the bestowing of honorary degrees that takes place each June.

For most of the year, however, the Sheldonian is used for concerts (see box). It is not the most comfortable of venues, with its hard seats, but is a fine interior nonetheless, spanned by a 70ft (21m) diameter flat ceiling, painted with a depiction of the Triumph of Religion, Arts and Science over Envy, Hate and Malice. The ceiling, with no intermediate supports, is held up by huge wooden trusses in the roof, details of which can be seen on the climb up to the cupola, which, though glassed in, provides fine views over central Oxford.

The Sheldonian Theatre offers fine views from the rooftop cupola.

Sheldonian Theatre

Music to the Ears

Ever since 1733, when Handel was honoured with a Doctor’s degree in music, which was celebrated with a week of performances of his music here, the Sheldonian has been the venue for a large variety of classical concerts. For further information, contact Music at Oxford (www.musicatoxford.com) or the Oxford Philomusica Orchestra (www.oxfordphil.com), which often performs here as well as at other venues in the city.

Bodleian Library

To the south of the Sheldonian, through the small gateway into Old Schools Quadrangle, are the...