• At the Relic Chapel in The Oxford Oratory

    But my eye was quickly drawn to something far from ordinary. For inside two ceiling-high, grey cabinets, internally lit and lined in red gauze, were shelves filled with an amazing array of ornately decorated receptacles; reliquaries as I later learned they are called. That is special showcases (caskets crafted from silver and gold, and made to look like churches, hollow crosses, statues and the like) designed to display the physical remains or objects used by those who have been canonised by the Catholic Church.

    May 16, 2026
    Feasts & festivities, Smells & bells

  • Beating of the Bounds

    I had been invited to join the congregation of the Church of St Michael at the North Gate (SMNG) in an age-old custom called ‘beating the bounds’ or sometimes ‘perambulations’ or ‘going a ganging’. In the days before maps and title deeds, when the parish was the basic unit of taxation and local government, it was important that people knew which parish they lived in and where the boundaries began and ended.

    May 9, 2026
    Feasts & festivities

  • Chiang Yee’s Oxford

    Opposite Meadow Walk on St Aldates, there is a shop where tourists like to buy souvenirs after their visit to Christ Church. It’s appropriately called ‘Alice’s Shop’ as this pretty…

    May 2, 2026
    Books and book folk

  • A call out for Oxford’s forgotten phone boxes

    Nestled into a corner on Catte Street across the way from Oxford’s famous ‘Bridge of Sighs’, stands an old red telephone box. It is in a sorry state. The door is locked. The paint peeling. Its contents long since carted away.  Most people pass it by without so much as a glance. Occasionally a tourist will stop to take a selfie, for they have read in the guidebooks that this is a monument to British telecommunications history, that the design has iconic status. But for me, standing here looking at its sad empty shell, this cherry-coloured cubicle with its distinctive domed roof brings back memories.

    April 25, 2026
    Street Life, Trade and Industry

  • Bewitched by the bluebells of Bagley Wood

    For although there is a hint of rain as we set off early one morning last week, the sky is as blue as the flowers we have ventured out south of Oxford to see. For this is bluebell time. Britain’s favourite flower.  And according to Bea, the best place to experience its full beauty is at Bagley Wood. The time of year that the 568 acres of ancient woodland rolls out the blue carpet as if in readiness for a royal arrival.

    April 18, 2026
    Flora and fauna

  • A snake’s head spectacular at Addison’s Walk

    At exactly this time last year I wrote on these pages about my outing to Iffley Meadows in search of Oxfordshire’s county flower, the snake’s head fritillary. I’d been informed that this was one of the few places close to the city where one could see in any numbers these delicate plum-coloured bells with their distinctive reptilian markings. And although I had been rewarded by the sight of a smattering of what have affectionately been called by descriptive names like ‘chequered lily’, ‘frog cup’, or ‘chess flower’ it was not the carpet, the swathes, the spectacle I had been expecting.  For that, I was told later with a nod and a wink by those in the know, I must go to Addison’s Walk, a one mile raised pathway that circles an ancient island water meadow between tributaries of the River Cherwell in the grounds of Magdalen College.

    April 4, 2026
    Flora and fauna

  • At the Cherwell Boathouse with Roger Forster and Bob Dowling

    I’d arranged to meet Roger Forster and Bob Dowling, the double act who look after the boating side of things down here amongst the willows on the edge of the water, still high and fast flowing from the recent rainfall.  They are preparing for the upcoming punt hire season and there is much work to be done. For their fleet of flat-bottomed boats, stored over winter in a large brick outbuilding need sanding down and varnishing, repairing, and repainting. And there are new punts to be finished, their workhorse shells made strong for a summer of bumps and battering. But then they are old hands at this kind of thing. Because they have both been at it a very long time.

    March 13, 2026
    Washhouses & other watery places