A spicy mix of Oxford stories from a house once belonging to a city sausage maker.
I am staring at a vast map on the wall of the cavernous Blackwell Hall in the Weston Library, a stone’s throw from the centre of Oxford. How I could have missed this huge hanging in the hundreds of times I have walked in this space I have no idea. But today as if by some magic here I am, standing in front of it, taking it all in.
Transfixed.
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.
But it was to see something else that I had taken shelter here last week as the rain lashed down on the brown cobbles outside. Tucked away behind the altar rail there is a little known memorial to one Amy Robsart.
What I hadn’t fully understood was this was to be an immersive Christmas experience. For Cordelia doesn’t do this season by halves. First, I am treated to a tour of her Christmas crib collection. She has 74 of them.
There’s a real physicality to Catherine’s work, all that lifting, and mixing, rolling and cutting alongside the heat of the oven; there’s a dexterity of hand that’s needed and an understanding of the inherent quality and character of the ingredients she is shaping.
Emma Coleman-Jones draws trees. In all seasons. In all weathers. Come blazing heat, bitter cold, rain, snow or high winds she will be out in the elements, sketchbook in hand looking for that serendipitous moment in time and place when something catches her eye.
Oxford is a city of doors. Big doors, tiny doors, doors within doors. There are grand fortified gateways to colleges built to keep the townsfolk out, and plain doors with…
I’m standing in front of the huge window at the east end of Balliol College dining hall. There in prime position, right at the top is a burning wheel. It…
There was, for a while, a time when if you were looking for an interesting place to visit in Oxford you’d be directed to a rather unexpected attraction. For in…
It’s at this time of year, after the clocks have gone back, and the evenings draw closer, that I like to don my coat and scarf and set off for…