Have to say, Oban was fun, even though I didn’t get to see Fingal’s Cave. The Old Manse was delightful, and Simon and Anna were fantastic. They really went out of their way to make everyone feel welcome, and to encourage breakfast conversations amongst their guests. I was sad that I only had two nights there.
The train ride back to Edinburgh was in brighter weather, so I got a better look at the very striking scenery on the trip. Honestly, a lot of the terrain was right out of story books. Absolutely gorgeous.
I have to say, though, that the Edinburgh train station was the most perplexing I’d been in. I wound up leaving the station through the wrong exit, and my phone directions were kind of messed up. I wound up having to climb up through a steep but interesting alley called Fleshmarket Close.
That led me, inadvertently, around to Edinburgh High Street. I look forward to walking it when I don’t have all my luggage with me.
It rained off and on for my walk to the hotel, including when I had to walk down a slick flagstone street. It was so steep, it actually had a handrail.
But I made it. Tomorrow, I go on the city sightseeing bus, and I’ll start actually seeing the city.
Well, the seas were too rough for my tour to land at Staffa so that I could see Fingal’s Cave1. The boat captain took us out past the shelter of Iona, and the seas pitched us around pretty well, so we all got the point about it not being safe. It reminds me a little of my attempt to visit the Skelligs in Ireland – one chance in an out-of-the-way village for a boat trip that is dependent on the weather. And the weather just didn’t co-operate.
So, Fingal got no visitors today.
Anyway, here are some pictures from the adventures I did have.
This is the view from the yard of my guesthouse. Almost makes climbing the steep streets worthwhile.This is the waterfront of Oban as the ferry carries me away towards the island of Mull.This is Duart Castle, the family seat of the MacLean clan. It’s sitting on a very picturesque headland on Mull.
The Mull portion of the Three Isles Excursion I was on was essentially riding on a bus for 70 minutes to get from the harbour nearest Oban to the harbour nearest Iona and Staffa. Some very pretty scenery and interesting bits2, but it was all through the windows of a bus.
The next stage was supposed to be the boat ride to Staffa, but we all know how that turned out. Instead, the boat took us across to Iona3, where we had a few hours before catching the ferry back to Mull. So, I went to look at the very cool stuff on Iona.
The Iona shore. It looks so nice and clear, but the wind out of the shelter of the island is fierce.
Iona is a special place in the history of Scotland and Ireland. St. Colomba built his abbey here, and this is where the Book of Kells was written, before it was moved to Ireland to keep it away from the Viking raiders.
In the village on Iona is a 13th century nunnery.The nunnery doesn’t look pleased to see me.This is an interesting carving. It’s pretty worn, and I’ve done some fiddling with contrast and stuff to make it show up clearly. It’s a sheela-na-gig, a carving of a woman with her legs spread. It’s supposed to chase away evil spirits. The origins of this belief and motif are unclear, but they’re fairly common in Scotland, Ireland, and England on churches from the 13th and 14th centuries.This is St. Colomba’s abbey. It’s the same site as the original abbey from the 6th century, but the current building is from around 1200.This is the Road of the Dead. It originally led from the Bay of Martyrs, back by the village, up to the abbey, and is the route that chieftains would be carried for burial at the abbey. Most of the road is underneath the current ground level, but this section, near the abbey, is all that remains above ground.This is the interior of the abbey church. It’s still used for services here on Iona, and is the site of pilgrimage.Okay. This is another cool carving. It’s called the Tormented Soul, and features in a number of churches. It’s set at the point in the ceiling where the priest should direct his voice for the acoustics of the space to make it carry to the entire area.The Ninth Duke of Argyll paid for restoring and repairing the abbey, on the condition that it be used for all Christian denominations. He died before it was complete, and is buried in his home tomb. His wife survived to see the work finished and, being from the islands herself, is interred here, next to a memorial for her husband. Note that the Duke’s crown is below his feet, while the Duchess’s crown is on her head; that’s how you can distinguish between an actual burial and a memorial. I learned that today.The walls surrounding the abbey cloister are lined with some of the many, many gravestones they’ve found on the site.The two column sets in the foreground and the only original cloister columns that have survived. The rest have been recreated, and each set carved uniquely by a different stonemason while working on restoration of the abbey. They did these columns in their spare time, over the course of thirty years.
So, after the abbey, I caught the ferry back to Mull, and the bus back to the other ferry, which took me back to Oban. By the time we docked, it was pouring rain. I had a nice dinner at a restaurant called Piazza, then walked back up to the Old Manse. I took the less-steep way that Simon had told me about, and it was much better.
Iona was cool, and I’m glad I got to see it and spend the time there. I’m disappointed about not getting to see Staffa, but that’s the way it goes.
Since I didn’t get to see Fingal’s Cave, I’m leaving this here.
**EDIT**
The YouTube video I linked here doesn’t seem to be available outside of the UK. So, here’s an attempt at linking in an mp3 of the same tune. This is Natalie McMaster and The Chieftains playing a set that starts with Fingal’s Cave, an old Scottish tune, either a march or a strathspey depending who you ask and how it’s being played. It’s off the Fire in the Kitchen album.
Listening to the folks on the tour, I was surprised to find that pretty much everyone else wanted to land at Staffa to see puffins. Only me and a music teacher from Washington really wanted to see Fingal’s Cave. [↩]
Okay. Our guide pointed out a standing stone in the middle of a cottage garden. He said that the power of this standing stone was to allow cell reception, which was otherwise lacking on the island. You had to stand out in the garden and touch the stone, and it only worked if you had a Vodafone contract. His delivery was so wonderfully deadpan that I actually heard some folks saying wow. [↩]
We were slated to visit Iona after Staffa, anyway. [↩]
Leaving York this morning, I had a really nice talk with Al, one of the folks who runs the guesthouse where I was staying. He asked what it was that I liked about York. I thought for a bit, then said, “London is awesome. It has everything. But it’s kind of overwhelming – you know you’re never going to be able to see and do it all. Oxford is fantastic, full of cool history and architecture, but it’s all kind of one flavour – University. York has a little bit of everything, including stuff you can’t get anywhere else, but it’s a manageable size.” He liked that, and it kind of sums up how much I like York1.
It was shortly after 9:00 that I caught the train in York up to Edinburgh. It was a nice ride, past some lovely scenery2, especially after Newcastle, where the rails start to follow the coastline. I missed spotting Lindesfarne, which I was told to look for, but saw lots of other very cool stuff.
Also at Newcastle, a group of young people3 got on, heading to Edinburgh to celebrate a birthday by hitting some bars and music shows. One of them wound up sitting across from me, and was a very entertaining conversationalist, mainly talking about the difference between Canada and the US.
I had to race a bit at Edinburgh to catch the Glasgow train, but I managed to catch some glimpses of the city as the trains entered and left the station. It got me all excited for going back there on Monday.
By the time I got to Glasgow, it had cooled off a fair bit from the very nice morning weather, and had started to rain. While the Glasgow Station is very nice, it doesn’t offer enough amusement to fill the three hour wait I had there. But finally, I got on the three-hour, whistle-stop train to Oban.
The ride to Oban reminded me of my tour of Connemara in Ireland. Rugged hills, hidden lakes and inlets, very dramatic scenery. We stopped about every 15 minutes throughout the three-hour trip. On the bright side, I had been wondering if I should have bothered to bring the external battery to charge up my phone – today’s trip showed that it was, indeed, worthwhile.
I made it Oban around 7:45. Here’s a quick picture looking across the bay towards part of the waterfront.
The walk to the Old Manse guesthouse was up some very steep hills. I was met partway by Simon, one of the owners, who told me that there was a less lethal way to get to the place, and I will be very glad of that tomorrow.
I kind of missed the food options by getting to Oban late – most non-pubs were closed, and the open ones, I am told, stop serving food at 9:00. I debated running out for something to eat, but decided I am more tired than hungry, and am making do with one of my emergency Clif bars for dinner.
The breakfast menu for tomorrow looks great, though.
This morning, I had nothing planned, but I hadn’t done a post last night. So, I made my way into the city centre, found a Starbucks, and sorted my pictures and wrote a post for the blog. Then, I went for a wander to see some last bits of the city and get some final pictures, because I’m off to Oban tomorrow, fairly early.
This is Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma Gate, said to be the shortest street in York. It runs from where I’m standing to the Mali salon you see at the end. The numbers on the street are 1, 1B, and 1 1/2. It doesn’t reach 2. The name is said to be a corruption of a Danish Viking phrase that means “neither one thing nor another.”This building, near Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma Gate, apparently came in second in an Ugliest Building in the UK competition. Then the winner was demolished, so this is the ugliest building in the UK by default. The style is called Brutalism.
Just in behind Whip-Ma-Whoip-Ma Gate is the Shambles. This is a medieval street, and used to be the street of butchers in York. The word comes from Fleshammels, an Anglo Saxon word meaning “flesh shelves,” referring to the display shelves in front of the shops. It’s very narrow.One of the shops in the Shambles is Barghest. It’s full of dog-related merchandise. A Barghest is a monstrous, ghostly black dog in the folktales of Yorkshire.
I headed back to York Minster for a little while, then. Some of my pictures hadn’t turned out, so I wanted to retake them, and my ticket is good for a year, so I figured why not. There was a guided tour starting as I came in, but I was planning on catching a movie in about an hour, so I didn’t join it.
This is the Quire, or Choir. They spell it with the Q in York. It’s where the clergy and chorus sit when there’s a full service, though attendance these days means that entire services are held here. You can see the crests for various clerical positions and bishoprics along the back row. This is the area below the central tower, behind the screen with the statues of church primates. It’s big enough to be a church all on its own.
I walked down to a movie theatre, then, and saw Mad Max: Fury Road. I liked it a fair bit – it reminded me of how much I enjoy the other three. So, I’m going to have to rewatch those.
That was mainly because I had a few hours to kill before seeing King Lear tonight. I showed up at the Theatre Royal, where I thought the show was, only to be told it was actually at York University. The very helpful lady gave me directions to get there, involving walking back to the train station and catching a couple of buses, then crossing the York University campus. “You should just make it, if you hurry,” she told me.
I went back out to the street, and it started raining on my. At which point, I gave up and went back to the guesthouse.
Tomorrow, I leave York. I’ve had a great time here – I really like the city. London was overwhelming, and Oxford, though very cool, was kind of all one thing. York is small enough that I was able to see most of it, and varied enough that there was a lot to see.
So, I’m on the train early tomorrow, for a long ride. First to Edinburgh, then to Glasgo, and finally to Oban. There may not be many – or any – pictures, as I spend the day on the train.
Yesterday was a long day. I didn’t have anything booked until 1:00, so I decided to spend the morning seeing York Minster and walking the walls of the city.
The folks at the guesthouse where I’m staying told me about a shortcut through the Yorkshire Museum Gardens that goes to the city centre. I decided to walk that way.I’m not sure if it’s any shorter, but it certainly a nicer walk than just going down the street.The gardens were once the site of St. Mary’s Abbey, just outside the walls of York. It was one of the victims of Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries after he broke with the Church of Rome.I started with York Minster. It’s the largest Gothic cathedral in the UK. And it looms really well, which is kind of a requirement for Gothic architecture.The place is huge. Okay, stadiums, arenas, and airports are larger, but there’s a palpable feeling of weight in the stone that encloses this large volume. And the place is big enough that you could build other buildings inside the main area. In fact, they have. That wall you see at the far end here is a smaller chapel built right under the central tower, with the organ above it.Here’s a closer view of that wall. Note the statues of the primates of the church, and the gold-chased pipes of the organ above. The central chapel is set up as what seems to be the Archbishop’s court.Below the foundations of the Minster, they found (surprise, surprise) Roman ruins. Here’s a bit of a well in the basement that shows one of the pillars of the Roman fortress that once stood on this spot. And, because it’s a hole in the ground, people throw coins in. I guess.Down in the undercroft, they also have a number of treasures of the cathedral. This is a carved elephant tusk horn that dates from the Saxon period.The York Gospels, from the 13th century.Outside the Minster is a statue of Constantine the Great. He was here in 306 when his father, the Emperor Constantius, died, and Constantine, with the support of his army, declared himself Emperor.
After seeing the Minster, I climbed up the stairs at Bootham Bar1, and decided to walk that section of wall.
The walls are very cool, but very, very narrow. Especially compared to someplace like Londonderry. Built in a different time to defend against different threats.The Minster dominates the view, when the trees aren’t in the way. By civil ordinance, no building can be as tall as two-thirds the height of the Minster.I followed the walls around to Monks Bar. The statues at the top of the towers are called the Wild Men of York, and it is said that, if York is in peril, they will come to life and toss their boulders down on attackers.
This gate also holds the Richard III museum, but I didn’t have time to head in there before my tour out to Castle Howard. I’m hoping to get back there today.
Castle Howard is the seat of the Earls of Carlisle, and they’ve lived there for over 300 years. It’s a wonderful example of a stately country home of the aristocracy.
It’s also where they filmed both the 80s miniseries of Brideshead Revisted and the 2008 remake.The gardens are both extensive and amazing.The Atlas Fountain is the main feature of the yard.Atlas is in the centre, holding the world on his shoulders. Surrounding him are four tritons, spraying him with water. The tritons are about eight feet tall, so Atlas would be 10-11 feet tall if he were standing upright.This is the Boar Garden. I was hoping for something more exciting based on the name.This is the Temple of the Four Winds. It’s a classical-style folly standing out at one corner of the main grounds.In the main entry hall. The painting over the fireplace is Vulcan at his forge.A very nice backgammon table in the Turquoise Parlour. The black draughts are not on the board. I don’t know why not.The long gallery of Castle Howard.Castle Howard chapel. Tiny and perfect.These are the stables. Yes, all of the building is the stables. Now, it’s been converted into a visitor welcome centre.Inside the stable courtyard. There are shops, a cafe, toilets, benches, and an actual butcher’s shop.
We got back to York around 5:30, and wandered my way down to the King’s Arms2, had some dinner3, and caught my Original Ghost Walk at 8:00.
This is an old pub on the river. It floods regularly.
There are four or five ghost walks in York. The one I took was highly recommended on Tripadvisor, and by the folks at my guesthouse. I can see why. Good stories, a lot of ground covered, and the guide was wonderful, keeping conversation going between the stories, so that everyone had a good time the entire tour. Absolutely fantastic.
It was about 10:30 by the time I made it home, and went to bed. I’m still kind of tired today, so I’ve spent the morning in Starbucks sorting my pictures and writing this post.
This afternoon, I’m thinking about going to see Mad Max: Fury Road.
If I can find the theatre again.
In York, they have a saying that I have heard repeatedly from all the guides and several others. “The streets are gates, the gates are bars, and the bars are pubs.” This means that most streets are Somethinggate, like Gillygate or Monksgate, because gate is a corruption of the old Danish word for street. The gates are called bars, from the same root as barbican. And, of course, the drinking places are pubs. [↩]
I was feeling quite smug and self-congratulatory at how easily I was navigating the twisty streets of York. Then I realized that I had passed Betty’s Tea Room three times in the past fifteen minutes. I withdrew the self-congratulations. [↩]
At a restaurant next door – the King’s Arms doesn’t serve food. [↩]
Gorgeous morning today. Bright, clear, warm, just enough of a breeze on the top deck of the sightseeing bus to keep you cool and alert. The tour was good, and I got off about half-way through at Clifford’s Tower.
Clifford’s Tower was the keep of the old York Castle that used to stand here. It’s just a hollow shell, now; neglect, and a 17th century mishap where the powder stores were ignited during gun salute blew the top off the tower.
There were a couple wooden castles that stood on this spot. One was the site of a rather horrific episode in 1190, when about 150 Jews, pursued by mobs all het-up with antisemitism and Crusade fever, sought refuge. The Jewish population pushed their way into the castle, locking out the royal constable, and set about holding off the maddened, rioting mobs. They were offered their lives if they would be baptized, and promised death if they refused. In the end, they set fire to the castle, choosing to immolate themselves rather than renounce their faith and accept the dubious guarantees of the Christians.
Not something York is very proud of.
This is the interior of Clifford’s Tower. Back before the gun accident, there were wooden floors and partitions in here, turning it into an actual livable location. The large octagonal section in the centre was the base of the central pillar that reached up to the former ceiling, providing support for the higher floors.
Clifford’s Tower is right next to the York Castle Museum. The rest of York Castle is long gone, and the remaining buildings are a former women’s prison and a former debtor’s prison. It’s a pretty great museum.
Near the entry of the women’s prison wing of the museum, there are a few rooms set up to reflect different eras. This is a very nice Victorian parlour.Here’s a dining room from the Elizabethan era.One of the main draws of the museum in Kirkgate, a reconstructed Victorian street. Well, I say street, but it’s actually a couple of streets, with some nice twisty alleys. All the building facings are authentic, having been moved to the museum from various cities and neighbourhoods to build their authentic street scene.Some of the shops on the street are open, like this Victorian pharmacy.A little dead end alley, with washing hanging from the higher floors. The two posted papers are a notice about how to avoid disease from city water, and an advertisement for an exhibition of torture implements and accounts.One of the cool things about this street display is that they put up handbills. Victorian streets wee plastered with these kinds of ads and notices.
The other wing of the museum, which was once a debtor’s prison, featured an in-depth look at the impact of WWI on the UK, and York in particular.
One section was a mock-up of a trench, with little offices and rooms opening off it, providing more displays and accounts.You can go out to see the exercise yard of the old debtor’s prison. You can even walk down outside the wall to see an old mill. There are some toys and stuff in here for the younger visitors; I don’t think they’re original to the yard.I did meet some other Canadians in the exercise yard, though. They very graciously did not attack me even though I would up between the parents and some of the goslings at some point.
After I finished up there, I went to find Jorvik, a special museum dedicated to showing off the Viking finds on the site in the 70s and 80s. Very cool stuff. A lot of it was in the form of a little car ride through a rebuilt Viking village full of animatronics1, but there was a lot of interest there, too.
Here’s the reconstructed Coppergate Helmet. It’s based on the remains of a helmet found at this site.There was a really nice fellow here, at this coin-striking demonstration. I got him to strike a coin for me, which was very cool, and he let me take this picture of his tools and props.
At this point, I went and got back on the sightseeing bus, planning to go see the Richard III museum. Unfortunately, I missed the stop, and the day had clouded over and gotten chilly. So, I rode the bus around to the start of the tour, and got off to find some lunch.
I wandered down through the twisty, turny, medievally part of the city near the Minster, and found a neat pub called Ye Olde Starre Inne2. Now, the thing that caught my eye about the place was that it didn’t have any street fronting. The Starre Inne, like the House of Trembling Madness and a few other places I saw, had been cut off from the street by new buildings, so they made their own arrangements. The House of Trembling Madness had its entry through another store, while the Starre Inne had a large sign across the entire width of Stonegate Street3 and a little alley that led to the Inne’s gardens.
The Inne has a couple of beer gardens, and a moderately large tavern. They serve a really good fish and chips, and have some tasty cider.
After that, I just wandered the streets for a while, trying to decide if I was going to call it a day or if I would try to squeeze in a visit to York Minster today. I made my way over to the Minster, and saw that it was going to close in half an hour, so I decided to save it for tomorrow morning.
So, that, and maybe a walk on the city walls, is slated for tomorrow morning. Tomorrow afternoon, I’ve booked a trip out to Castle Howard. That should be cool.
Not a lot of pictures today. I spent about six hours checking out of the Oxford hotel, walking to the train station, waiting for a train, traveling to York, and walking to my guesthouse. Not a difficult day, but traveling definitely cuts into sightseeing time.
I also got away from Oxford about an hour later than I had planned – my computer stopped working, and it took me a while this morning to sort that out. I wanted to have the computer working so that I could watch a movie1 the four-hour train trip.
After I got settled into my guesthouse, I went for a bit of a walk to a pub I had read about in the guesthouse. And I took a couple of pictures.
Walking down the street towards the city centre, you get to the walls of York, along with the gates through it. This gate is called Bootham Bar. There are stairs up to the top of the wall, so in the next couple of days, I’m going to go for a wall walk.Through the gate and down a narrow street, you get to York Minster. It’s closed, now, but I’ll have a chance to see inside sometime in the next couple of days.
The pub I was looking for was called The House of Trembling Madness. Trembling madness is a reference to delirium tremens, the DTs. It’s through a Bottle Shop2, and up a narrow, twisty flight of stairs.
The House of Trembling Madness dates from 1180, and was a medieval hall. The main sign of that is the beams in the ceiling. There are also lots of mounted heads, but I don’t think they’re 850 years old. Still, a very cool spot. And good burger.Walking back, I came across this memorial to the Yorkshiremen who fought and died in the Second Boer War. It’s right near York Minster, and it’s a pretty impressive memorial.
And now, I’m back in my room, and going to read for the rest of the evening. Tomorrow, a sightseeing bus tour.
I watched Taken 3. It was so full of dumb, I can’t even begin to describe it. Even more than the first two. [↩]
So. My plan today was simple. Drop off some laundry, take a tour of the Bodleian Library, get a look inside the Sheldonian Theatre, see the exhibit of Bodleian treasures at the Weston Library, grab some lunch, and spend the rest of the day wandering through the Ashmolean Museum before picking up my laundry and returning to the hotel.
This mostly worked out, with one minor hiccup I’ll get to.
I got the laundry dropped off and an assurance it would be ready this evening. That was a load off my mind, though it was also somewhat expensive. They know when they’ve got you over a barrel, don’t they? Still, I needed clean pants, so there ya go.
After that, I walked back to the Bodleian Library1 and bought a ticket for the hour-long tour.
While I waited for the tour to start, I grabbed a couple more pictures.
This is a statue of William Herbert, the 3rd Earl of Pembroke. He was a patron of Shakespeare, and the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays is dedicated to him. He may or may not be the Mr. W. H. that the sonnets are dedicated to. He was a bit of a scandalous character in Elizabeth’s court, but was a generous and bookish man, who gave a whole bunch of books to the library. Note the stylish armour; that’s about as close as Herbert ever got to a battlefield.This is the tower topping the main entrance of the Old Schools Quadrangle, the main court of the Bodleian. It’s called the Tower of the Five Orders, because the columns on each level are from different orders of classical architecture. I had hoped for a cooler explanation, to be honest.
The tour was fascinating, but a little unsatisfying. Because the Bodleian is a working library, and exams are coming on, we had to be very quiet and careful to stay out of everyone’s way. Also, except for the School of Divinity, we weren’t allowed to take photographs.
This is the School of Divinity. It used to be used for the Oral Disputation, the Latin debate that served as final examinations. These days, it’s mainly used as the robing room for graduates before they cross over into the Sheldonian Theatre. Also, the ballroom dancing class scene from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was filmed in here. I’m standing about where Prof. McGonnagall stood to lead the class.In here with a slot for donations, sits Thomas Bodley’s black iron strongbox. The lid is open and, as you can see, the underside is a complex set of levers, rods, springs, and plates. These are the rather elaborate locks that were used to secure the chest.The ceiling of the hall is elaborately decorated with over 450 bosses, showing the coats of arms and initials of various patrons and important people in Oxford in the late 17th century when the ceiling was finished. This is just one section.
The tour even took us inside the Radcliff Camera, that I’ve talked about previously. What I didn’t know was that, originally, the ground floor of the Camera was open to the air, with open arches, providing a small sheltered area that was used for public gatherings, small markets, etc. The arches were closed up in the 18th century, when the library started needing more room for storage.
The Weston Library, where I went next, is hosting an exhibit called Marks of Genius. They are displaying a number of books, documents, and artifacts from the Bodleian’s collection. These were all available for photography, and I might have gone a little nuts in there. Here’s is a limited selection of my pictures.
The Magna Carta.A map of the world according to the Ottoman Empire in the 14th century.John James Audobon’s Birds of North America. Four volumes in its special case. The pages are about four feet wide.An ivory plaque from the court of Charlemagne, circa 800. It’s set in an 18th century binding that covers the original Carolingian manuscript.The Ashmole Bestiary, showing the two-page spread where it talks about the phoenix.Another bestiary, showing an elephant on the right and a gryphon killing a horse on the left.A painting of Percy Bysshe Shelley and his sister Mary Shelley. The watch was Percy’s and the locket contained a lock of Mary’s hair.Remember that I said the First Folio was dedicated to William Herbert, the 3rd Earl of Pembroke? Well, here’s the First Folio. They seem to have cleaned off the marks I made pressing my face against the glass. Stories that I was licking the case are filthy, filthy lies. Probably.
After that, I walked back across the street to the Sheldonian Theatre. This is another building shared by all the colleges, and it’s used mainly for matriculation and graduation ceremonies.
The ceiling is pretty awesome, being a multi-panel painting of Truth descending from the clouds to ennoble the various subjects taught in Oxford, and drive out the various evils of ignorance. I couldn’t get that good a picture.
The cupola of the Sheldonian gives a nice panoramic view of the city. Unfortunately, the windows are about five feet off the ground, which limits the view somewhat.
But here’s the view south, showing the spires and towers of the Bodleian and the dome of the Radcliff Camera behind. Just beside that is the spire of St. Mary’s.
I grabbed a sandwich and a drink, then, and walked down to the Ashmolean, where I sat on a bench and ate my lunch before going in.
Which is when I learned that the Ashmolean is closed on Mondays.
By this time, I was tired, and my knees were twinging, so I decided to take an afternoon off2 and rest up. Besides, I had The Imitation Game on my computer, and really wanted to see it after my tour of Bletchley Park yesterday. Quick review – fun movie, but the history of everything was… simplified. An interesting starting point for learning about Bletchley Park, but shouldn’t be the only source.
And then I went and picked up my laundry and some dinner.
Tomorrow, I’m off to York. Oxford was great, and I could spend another couple of days here, but I’m starting to think that’s going to be the same at each of my stops.
Guess I’ll have to come back.
I should specify that this is the Old Bodleian Library. There was a New Bodleian Library, but it was renamed the Weston Library. People still refer to the old Bodleian Library as the Old Bodleian Library. I dunno. [↩]
I say take an afternoon off, but this was like 3:00. So, take part of an afternoon off. [↩]
One of the big things I wanted to do on this trip is visit the Bletchley Park Museum. It’s pretty much holy ground for computer nerds, WWII geeks, conspiracy theorists, secret history aficionados, and1 information security specialists. I fall into a couple of those categories, so this was a bit of a pilgrimage for me.
For those who don’t know, here’s the brief on Bletchley Park. In the early days of WWII, the British military set up a signals intercept and codebreaking unit at Bletchley Park. They brought together a varied group of geniuses, trained a bunch of technicians2, and started trying to break the German codes. They were very successful, shortening the war by an estimated two years, ensuring the surprise of the D-Day attack, and helping to find and sink the Bismarck. Along the way, they pretty much laid the foundations for modern computing.
And then, when the war was over, the whole operation was silently shut down. All the papers were destroyed, all the machines dismantled and dispersed, and all the people sworn to secrecy. Until the project went public in 1974, there was pretty much no leak about the existence and work done at Bletchley Park. Churchill called Bletchley Park, “the geese that laid the golden eggs and never cackled.”
About the only other single project that had this sort of impact on the course of WWII is the Manhattan Project.
Anyway.
The travel instructions I got for the park – gleaned from some Internet site I can no longer find – weren’t good. They landed me in Milton Keynes with the impression that the museum was an easy walk from the train station. It wasn’t. It was a fifteen-minute cab ride away. Not ideal, but easy enough.
And then I wandered in the footsteps of the greats.
These are what it was all about. You’ve got an Enigma machine on the left, a much simpler Italian cipher machine on the right, and some pads above. The bottom shelf holds the much more complex Lorenz cipher machine.This is a Bombe. It’s an electromechanical device that was used to test potential settings for the Enigma machines. This Bombe could test 36 different settings at once. Note that this, like pretty much all the other machines here is a reconstruction, because the original machines had been dismantled after the war. This was actually made as a prop for The Imitation Game.Once they had the day’s settings for Enigma, those would be set up on this Typex machine. Enigma messages could then be typed on the Typex, which would output the deciphered message.These days, the grounds of Bletchley Park are lovely. During wartime operations, though, most of the clear ground was covered by huts and tents.The mansion started as the centre of decoding efforts. The group grew quickly, and began working out of cottages on the grounds. Those quickly proved inadequate to the personnel, and the army started building huts. Towards the end of the war, they’d added a larger, more modern, more permanent set of structures, a set of alphabetically labeled blocks.One of the administration offices in the mansion. Of course, this is a reproduction of what it would have looked like.And this is a reconstruction of Alan Turing’s desk in Hut 8.
If I had come here next month, there would have been a couple more exhibits ready, including a look at a reconstructed Bombe, with demonstrations of how it worked. Also, an exhibit of how the various codebreakers worked to break the codes.
One thing that was of real interest to me3 is that the whole focus of the initial codebreaking efforts under Dilly Knox was on what he called the least secure part of the cipher: the people using it. People were lazy, and used easy-to-remember key settings on their devices – the names of their girlfriends, rude words, etc. These things gave the Bletchley Park codebreakers their first fingerholds on Enigma.
Interesting to me is the fact that the museum is doing a great deal to make sure that Bletchley Park is placed in the context of the entire war. Here, in front of the mansion, is a sculpture of a landmine victim.Just before Poland fell to Germany, Polish Intelligence shipped a whole bunch of their work, information, and materials to Bletchley Park. This gave the British a real leg up in their efforts, and is commemorated in this memorial.And this memorial to those who worked at Bletchley Park was dedicated by Her Majesty just four years ago. The code wheels spell out WE ALSO SERVED.
The museum had an awesome multi-media self-guided tour device – essentially an iPod Touch loaded with a keyed multi-media presentation. It provided a lot of good info, along with ways to drill down for more information in the areas where there’s more interest. Overall, the entire Bletchley Park Museum was awesome, in the truest sense of that word – I am in awe of the things I learned.
The trip home was easier, because I had figured out where the Bletchley train station was. Just in case you cared.
Now, I’m going to bed. Tomorrow’s my last day in Oxford. Got a few places I want to see, and I also want to get some laundry done.
This morning, I went on the Oxford walking tour I had booked. The day was a little overcast, and windy, and cool, but that’s okay. There were also a lot of people in the Oxford gowns, along with well-dressed family members, roving the streets, which made me think there was a graduation ceremony in the offing1. Nothing wrong with that, of course, except that it meant some places were off-limits to us tourists.
But we set off as folks gathered, and saw some very cool things.
Okay. These heads, on the fence surrounding the Sheldonian Theatre, are called the Philosophers. That said, no one seems really sure who or what they represent: philosophers, emperors, the disciples, or what. The fact that they have kind of slack-jawed, gormless expressions, the sarcastic title of Philosophers seems to have stuck. One guide suggested they were models for various styles of ancient Greek scholarly beards.This is a side view of the Sheldonian Theatre. It’s where most of the big ceremonies – like graduations – are held. You can see the rope lines set up to keep the students in line. It was designed by Christopher Wren while he was studying Astronomy at Oxford, and is apparently a masterpiece of criss-crossing beams supporting the ceiling, rather than using columns.This formidable place is the gate of New College, which was the first college designed in a deliberately fortified nature, and with an eye to economy of placement of facilities within. I found it very interesting for two main reasons: first, Archibald Spooner, who gave the English language the word “spoonerism,” was Warden here once upon a time. Second, it’s a beautiful illustration of how the colleges are each little self-contained worlds. This is the outside……and this is the inside. The college quad is large, open, and beautiful. Past the quad, though the archway at the back……is the cloister. One of the scenes in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was shot here.It’s the scene where Draco Malfoy is mocking Harry from up in the tree, and then gets turned into a ferret by Mad-Eye Moody. This is an ilex, an evergreen oak variety. It’s not used to the cooler climate here in Oxford, and so has leached all the nutrients from the soil around it, leaving a large dead space.Also within the imposing walls of New College is a beautiful garden. I don’t know what’s up those stairs – visitors are not allowed on the grass. I don’t blame them, but I am curious.
The stark contrast between the forbidding exteriors of the colleges and the sumptuous, well-groomed interiors really struck me. More than most universities I’ve seen, it was a profound delineation between the closed, pampered collegiate life, and the rougher, more earthly life in the real world.
Not that I consider academic life to necessarily be the ivory tower that this sort of display makes me think of. It’s more that, looking at this, I understand where that sort of idea comes from.
Anyway. We left New College, and headed back to a couple of other stops. The crowds prevented some of the pictures I took to be much good.
This is the Radcliff Camera. It was built by a disciple of Christopher Wren, and presents a couple of tributes to him. First of all, the dome is a replica (much smaller, of course) of the dome of St. Paul’s in London, which was designed by Wren. Second, the circumference is identical to the circumference of Stonehenge, which was first scientifically measured and mapped by Christopher Wren.This is inside the square of the old Bodleian Library. It’s a huge square, designed based on biblical accounts of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem.Surrounding the inner square of the Bodleian are these doors, each labeled with the subject that used to be stored in that area.
After the tour, I stuck my head in a couple of pubs, looking to find some lunch, but they were all packed solid with graduation celebrants. So, I wandered down the street to the Natural History Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum.
Honestly, I wasn’t too interested in the Natural History Museum, but you need to go through it to get to the Pitt Rivers Museum. Still, there were some cool things in the Natural History Museum. For example:
An iguanodon skeleton.A t-rex skeleton. This one looms really nicely.Lots and lots of other skeletons.
Through the back of the gallery is the Pitt Rivers Museum.
This is not like a modern museum. It’s arranged like the Victorian-era museum it actually is. What does that mean? It means that it’s full of whatever caught the attention of the founder, arranged in categories that are not necessarily scientific or even useful.For example, there’s a section of animal figures in art.Another section of metal locks and keys.A set of Haida totem poles.Some skulls that had been taken as trophies by those who slew them in battle.Hairpins from all over the world and throughout history.
But this was the thing that totally blew my mind and convinced me of the basic surrealism of the world.
Shields from New Guinea tribesmen painted with the image of the comic book character the Phantom.
So, here’s how those came about. Apparently, the hill tribes of the interior of Papua New Guinea made these big war shields. They painted them with images of ancestors and helpful spirits, binding the power of those things to aid them in war. When they started running into Europeans armed with firearms, the shields turned out to be less than useful in combat.
But they got their hands on some Phantom comic books. The idea of the Phantom – The Man Who Cannot Die, The Ghost Who Walks – as a defender of a native people against pirates and other exploiters resonated with them. They started to paint the Phantom on their shields to invoke his power, though they became items of ritual and ceremony rather than war against the Europeans.
That just made my day.
After that, I managed to have lunch in The King’s Arms, a pub that may2 have hosted the first performance of Hamlet outside of London. Shakespeare himself, while he was with The King’s Men, may have drunk there when he was in Oxford, which was not uncommon.
It was a good chicken and bacon pie, and a nice pint of cider.
Then I wandered a bit, feeling a little tired, and found the Oxford Martyrs’ Monument.
This is the monument to the bishops and archbishop who were burned at the stake, and the other martyrs to religious war in Oxford.
I was tired, then, and saw that I was right near a movie theatre, so I went and saw Avengers: The Age of Ultron again. Then, back to the hotel to do up this long post and plan for tomorrow.
I’m planning to head out to Milton Keynes tomorrow and see the Bletchley Park museum. Just as well, because apparently there’s a fun run going on in Oxford tomorrow, and it’ll shut down a few things. Then, on Monday, I’m going to hit the rest of the things I want to see here.
Oxford is awesome.
Turns out there were at least two: one for Trinity College, and one for Wadham College. [↩]
