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. [↩]
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. [↩]
