• King Charles I and his Oxford Mint

    I’d become interested in the story recently when by chance I found myself staring at perhaps the most famous coin minted during that time, the Oxford Crown. It stands in a case of its own, on a lower floor of the Ashmolean and is positioned so that you can walk around it and see the full glory of its exquisite detail. On the obverse side is a proudly mounted King Charles, in one hand the hilt of a drawn sword held aloft, the other the reins of his snorting charger. You can almost make out the breath from the horse’s flared nostrils and feel the breeze as the monarch’s sash billows out behind him.

    October 10, 2026
    Trade and Industry

  • A walk along Britain’s oldest road

    On one of the last of this year’s long summer days, I accept an invitation from my friend Gina to take a walk along the Ridgeway, also known as the oldest road in Britain. She had discovered that she could use her free pass on the bus to London as far as Lewknor, a small Oxfordshire village at the foot of the Chiltern Hills, and a stone’s throw from the ancient path trodden for over 5,000 years by generations of our ancestors.

    October 3, 2026
    Flora and fauna

  • Magdalen’s mercy seats

    One morning during the summer I found myself on my knees in front of a man with his legs in the air.  Desperate for some respite from the heat, I had popped into the cool shade of the chapel of Magdalen College, (free entry for Oxford residents), and there he was. An impish look on his face, and a smile on his lips, peering from between his splayed lower limbs, exposing his bare buttocks in a feat of enviable acrobatics.

    September 26, 2026
    Arts and crafts, Dodos & other Oxford animals, Stranger than fiction

  • At Fringford Church with the Oxfordshire Monumental Inscriptions team

    Mary Whitehead is kneeling in front of a part buried gravestone thick with yellow lichen when she calls me over to take a look. We are in the churchyard of the 12th century St Michael and All Angels Church in Fringford, just north of Bicester, and the decorative carving on the stone’s crown as well as its positioning on the main pathway tells her that this might be one of the oldest here. Carefully she takes her trowel and pulls back the inch or so of turf that has grown up around it.

    September 12, 2026
    In memoriam

  • The gardeners of Cripley Meadow

    Arriving in England from Southern Italy in 1960 to take up positions in domestic service, they were always going to grow their own – it was what you did back home. And over the years, they have cultivated everything from peas, parsnips, and pumpkins to chicory, chard, carrots and cucumbers, beetroot, borlotti beans and purple sprouting broccoli. They may no longer have the bend in their bodies to put in the hours they once did, but with no garden at home this is still their favourite spot, where they like to come to get out of the house. The place in which they have produced such abundance is where they feel most happy. 

    September 5, 2026
    Flora and fauna, Oxford gardens

  • John Towle and his paper house

    Take one look at the faded photograph of the charming villa above and you might think this a story about Oxford house prices. Far from it. It’s the tale of John Towle, the Victorian mill owner turned architect who created this unconventional dwelling – a house of cards I suppose one might say, for it is constructed almost entirely from paper. Not the ‘huff and puff and blow your house down’ kind of paper production of ‘The Three Little Pigs’. But a residence that stood strong and upright from when it went up in 1844 until it was finally demolished in 1996. That’s an amazing lifespan for any building. Never mind one made of paper.

    August 22, 2026
    Builders and buildings, Trade and Industry

  • Kazem Hakimi, fish and chip shop photographer.

    Kazem Hakimi has run the fish and chip shop at the far end of the Iffley Road for the past 38 years. It’s an old school takeaway. A narrow frontage in a parade of shops that include an estate agent, a cafe and a bike store. Fryers and warming cabinets, standing room only at the front, a small counter on which to wrap and serve, posters and fliers advertising local events pinned neatly on the wall. So far not so unusual. Except that Kazem is also a photographer and while you are waiting for your battered cod to crisp, he might well ask if you’d mind stepping round the back to have your picture taken. There you will find a makeshift studio open to the elements. Plain white wall, natural lighting, no fancy accessories. A few quick snaps. All done in the time it takes to cook a bag of chips

    August 15, 2026
    Street Life, Trade and Industry

  • Of Saints and Sanitary ware

    For it is rumoured that within one of its most prized stained glass windows, created by the Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones and dedicated to St Frideswide the patron saint of Oxford, is secreted a modern lavatory. I want to see this for myself.

    August 8, 2026
    Coloured glass