The high street starts by following a route originally established in the Saxon walled city.
We will follow it to the point where it left the walled part of the Saxon city.
The city at that time was poorly aligned with the road from the east, and today's high street still curves gently to the right, following a track from the original East gate to the river crossing near Magdalen college.
Later we will find colleges and churches, but the first part of the high street is dominated by commercial properties.
The trick here is to avoid being distracted by the first floor of the shops, many of which are relatively modern.
Most of the buildings are much older than they appear at first sight.
We must look higher, and down side alleys to find evidence for hundreds of years of building along this street.
Immediately we find traces of the medieval plots that bordered the street.
Three narrow alleys seperate the blocks of shops that developed along the main street.
The first lies next to number 131: Payne's silversmiths: itself one of the most attractive shopfronts on the High:
The passage that runs under the dog with the watch in its mouth leads to the 15th century Chequers Inn.
Number 130 is timber framed, 15th century, and the oldest in the street.
Alongside, another narrow passage leads to Kemp Hall an important timber framed house dating from 1637.
It is now a restaurant, but the door, and many of the windows are original.
Behind number 128 is Wheatsheaf yard, home of Gill and Company, who claim to be Britains oldest ironmongers, (founded in 1530).
Number 126 (left) is a timber framed house, known to date originally from the 14th century.
Little of the 14th century front is left. After considerable rebuilding it now boasts the finest 17th century front in Oxford.
Behind the shops to our left is the Covered Market.
By 1774 Oxford's market had spread, from its centre in Carfax, into the surrounding streets.
The "Paving Commission" were unhappy with the quality and hygiene, and decided to build a permanent covered market to increase standards.
Notice that three of the market gates on the high lie symetrically under the stone faceade. But the fourth is set away from the main front.
The three market entrances between numbers 13 and 16, and the elegant facade above the shopfronts were designed by John Gwynne, who also designed Magdalen bridge.
The market was extended twice in the 19th century, and an extra gate was added under number 10.
The "temporary" roof above John Gwynne's stonework was erected in 1945.
We could enter the market now, but in a spirit of deferred gratification, we leave this real treat as something to look forward to, at the end of the walk.
Once a coaching inn, the Mitre Inn was built in 1600, but has cellars dating from the 13th century.
The oldest part with the bay windows, is to the left. The main doors once opened into the inn yard.
Beyond the Mitre Inn, we come to All Saint's Church.
A church existed here in 1122, but the present building dates from 1706.
It was built after the tower of the previous church had fallen down.
No new church had been built in Oxford since the 15th century.
This was a time when the academic standards of the university were in decline, but funds were plentiful, and Oxford compensated with lavish building.
All Saints is an impressive building, in classical style, with a partiularly striking tower and front on the High Street.
The architect was Dean Aldrich, an amateur, but advised by Hawksmoor. The tower was built later, to the design of an unknown architect, but clearly influenced by the churches that Christopher Wren built in London.
No longer a church - it is now the library of Lincoln College.
Oxford has always been a residential university.
Before colleges became established, students lived either in private houses, or in academic halls.
| In Chaucer's Canterbury tales, the miller tells the story of John, a rich Oxford carpenter, whose young wife, Alison, is seduced by Nicholas, their student lodger. The couple fool the carpeneter into hiding in a barrel to survive the return of Noah's flood, while they enjoy themselves in his bed. Mayhem ensues when Absalon, the local dandy, arrives to court Alison as well. |
And every wight gan laughen at this stryf.
Thus swyved was this carpenteris wyf,
For al his kepyng and his jalousye;
And absolon hath kist hir nether ye;
And nicholas is scalded in the towte.
This tale is doon, and God save al the rowte!
And everyone did laugh at all this strife. Thus futtered was the carpenter's goodwife, For all his watching and his jealousy; And Absalom has kissed her nether eye; And Nicholas is branded on the butt. This tale is done, and God save all the rout! |
The Canterbury tales were written in the 1380's.
An academic hall was a house, often owned by a monastery, licensed by the university, and managed by a graduate of the university, which offered accomodation, meals and communal life.
Behind 106-107 High street lies such a house - purpose built as Tackley Hall around 1324.
On the left, we pass the high street century frontage of Brasenose college.
Although it fits well with the style of the surrounding medieval buildings the High Street face of Brasenose college is much later. It was built in two stages. From the gate tower to the right was built between 1881 and 1888, and to the left of the gate tower between 1909 and 1911.
The architect was T G Jackson, who also built the monstrous examination schools. He had originally intended a spire on top of the tower, but it was felt that this would conflict with the spires of St Mary's church and All Saints church.
Later we will look at the older buildings of Brasenose in more detail from Radcliffe Square.
For now we can enjoy the quality and inticacy of this stone carving, completely in sympathy with its surroundings.
On the left we arrive at St Mary's church, with its remarkable south porch. For the purposes of this guide we explore the church in more detail later, from the north entrance in Radcliffe square. However, it is worth a moment to examine the porch.
The porch was added in 1637.
The columns are modelled on St Peter's basilica in Rome.
William Laud, a fellow of St John's college, became Chancellor of the university in 1630
He pressed for the church to be remodelled and used exclusively for worship.
When he became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633, Laud's strenuous attempts to suppress puritanism lay behind puritan emigration, and were a factor in the civil war.
Subsequently he was impeached by parliament in 1640 for treason, tried and beheaded.
At his trial, the statue of the virgin and child in the porch of St Mary's church was cited as evidence of his popery.
On the other side of the High Street is the facade of Oriel College - with three statues.
Cecil Rhodes, who paid for the rebuilding of the facade is placed higher than both King Edward VII and King George V.
Beyond St Mary's, before we turn into Catte street, we take a moment to look along the next stretch of the high street.
On the outer wall of University college is a plaque showing location of Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke's laboratory.
"In a house on this site between 1655 and 1668 lived Robert Boyle. Here he discovered Boyle's law and made experiments with an air pump designed by his assistant Robert Hooke. Inventor, Scientist and Architect who made a microscope and thereby first identified the living cell.
Robert Boyle (1627-1691) is best known for Boyle's law, which states that (at constant temperature) there is an inverse relationship between the volume and pressure of a gas, i.e. that the pressure multiplied by the volume is a constant (pv = k).
Boyle tried to free the study of chemistry from some of its medieval mystique and introduce modern scientific method.
In 1661 he attacked Aristotle's model of the four elements (earth, air, fire, and water) in a book called "The Sceptical Chymist".
Boyle conceived that substances were made up of different combinations of elementary particles which combine to produce corpuscles, and in doing so clarified the nature of an element, and laid the foundations for subsequent developments in chemistry.
Hooke (1635-1703) was assistant to Boyle in Oxford from 1655, and a leading experimental scientist of his time.
In 1660 he discovered that, within reasonable bounds, objects deform in proportion to the force that is applied to them (Hooke's law).
But he achieved real fame in 1665, with a book, Micrographia, illustrating observations through his microscope.
"The truth is, the science of Nature has already been too long made only a work of the brain and the fancy. It is now high time that it should return to the plainness and soundness of observations on material and obvious things." Micrographia 1665
Samuel Pepsys "Before I went to bed I sat up till two o'clock in my chamber reading Mr Hooke's Microscopical Observations, the most ingenious book that ever I read in my life".
Hooke, on his microscopic observation of cork: ". . . I could exceedingly plainly perceive it to be all perforated and porous. . . these pores, or cells, . . . were indeed the first microscopical pores I ever saw, and perhaps, that were ever seen, for I had not met with any Writer or Person, that had made any mention of them before this."
University College was founded in 1249, but the buildings date from the 17th century. Visitors to the college look for:
Now we return to Catte street and cross into Radcliffe Square.
In Saxon times this was where the city wall cross the high street. Later, the walled area was extended east, and all of the adjoining lands fell within the wall's defenses. But originally, this marked the eastern end of the town, and the road beyond the wall curved down to the river near Magdalen college.
We are following the line of the eastern wall.
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