A spicy mix of Oxford stories from a house once belonging to a city sausage maker.
The date is 30 June 1860. The location is the new University Museum (now the Oxford University Museum of Natural History). Upwards of 500 people have squashed into the first…
The forecast was rain, so I took an umbrella to Green Templeton College for the tour I had booked through Oxford’s Civic Society. It’s not a famous college. For a…
It’s easy to miss them as you glide up to the top floor of the new Westgate Centre. But glance to your right and there on the wall is a…
I was delighted to be invited to meet Chris Raworth at his workshop in Middle Barton, catching him just after he had assembled his set of gallopers for the last…
I have long been enchanted by Cecily Peele’s “MAP OF OXFORD’S HISTORY; WITH SOME OF HER WORTHIES”, (above) published in the 1930’s. A cursory glance at this funny, colourful pictorial…
We have the Reverend Carteret Fletcher to thank for saving Carfax Tower. Since the 13th century, this landmark building has stood at Oxford’s central crossroads, themselves the final confluence for…
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…
“A young boy scout once asked me which was my favourite grave,” smiles Dick Richards, a volunteer guide for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, as he stands amidst the rows…
A few years back two friends, George Townsend and Duncan Montgomery took a walk through Oxford to Parson’s Pleasure, a grassy stretch on the river Cherwell notorious as a spot…
We are standing alongside two large green industrial wheelie bins in the delivery area for The Covered Market in the heart of Oxford. It’s not the most salubrious of places,…