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.
When Richard Rawlinson died in April 1755, he left instructions in his will that his heart ‘be taken out, enclosed in a silver cup with spirits and put into a black marble urn’. Then, after the rest of his body was laid to rest in St Giles Church in Oxford, this once beating organ was to be taken across the road to be stored separately at his old university college, St John’s.
When Richard Rawlinson died in April 1755, he left instructions in his will that his heart ‘be taken out, enclosed in a silver cup with spirits and put into a black marble urn’.
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.
On one of those blue skied autumnal days we’ve had recently I get a call from my friend, walking companion and Oxford Sausage nature correspondent, Beatrice Groves to say the…
Despite its pretty 15th century Oxford shop front, most passers by will not give number 130 High Street a second glance. But down past an ancient oak gateway to the…
It is easy to miss Annora’s grave. For she is buried under a moss covered stone slab lying flat on the ground, close up against the south wall of the…
The Oxford University Church of St Mary the Virgin is sometimes overlooked as a place to visit, standing as it does in competition with its more flamboyant neighbours in Radcliffe…
One of the hidden secrets of Oxford is that although many of the University’s colleges now charge an entry fee, you can always claim to be visiting the chapel and…