The walk starts at the Carfax crossroads, situated at the centre of Oxford, and easily accessed by public transport.
Through traffic now bypasses the centre, but the position of these roads has not changed for over a thousand years.
The structure of Oxford was originally laid out around 900 a.d., during the reign of King Edward, or his father, Alfred. It was a time of great conflict between Saxons and Danes, and Oxford was close to the frontier. So the Saxons turned an existing village and religious settlement into a fortified town to guard the river crossing. They chose the form of a Roman fort - rectangular defences with four main roads meeting in the centre.
At Carfax we are standing at the centre of the Saxon fortified town. This is the point where the main roads to the north, the south, the east and the west came together in a central meeting place.
Our walk covers roughly the North-East quarter of the Saxon town.
To our south was the priory of St Frideswide, now Oxford cathedral.
To our west was the castle, and its mound.
The whole was surrounded by defenses of earth and wood, later replaced by a stone wall.
There were four gates in the wall, one for each of the points of the compass.
Standing at the crossroads today, we can see along four of the main streets of Oxford. Each of these once led to one of the four main gates of the walled city. Cornmarket, to the north is a major shopping street, and the route by which we will return at the end of this walk. (Pictured right).
Queen Street to the west is another major shopping street. We will explore the area to the west of the centre in the third walk.
St Aldgate's to the south leads past Christchurch college to Folly bridge - the probable location of the original "Ox Ford".
We will also explore this area further in the third walk.
For an exellent history of the town, visit the Museum of Oxford at the back of the town hall on the left of St Aldgate's.
In a moment we will begin our walk to the east, along the High Street.
But first there are a cople of notable points about Carfax.
The south east corner of Carfax is the only one that lacks a financial institution.
Lloyds bank is on the North-east corner, HSBC (formerly Midland) on the North-west.
And low on the wall of Abbey National in the South West corner, is a plaque marking the site of the long-demolished Swyndlestock Tavern. Why?
| In 1674 in his history of the university, Anthony Wood wrote: |
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On tuesday 10th February 1354 (being the feast of St Scholastica the virgin) came Walter de Sprinheuse, Roger de Chesterfield, and other clerks to the tavern called Swyndlestock. And there calling for wine, John de Croydon the vintner brought them some, but they disliking it.. and he avouching it to be good, several snappish words passed between them. At length the vintner giving them stubborn and saucy language, they threw the wine and vessel at his head. The vintner therefore receding with great passion, and aggravating the abuse to those of his family and neighbourhood, several came in encouraged him not to put up with the abuse, and withal told him they would faithfully stand by him. Among those were John de Bereford, Richard Forester and Robert Lardiner, who out of proposed malice seeking all occassions of conflict with the scholars, and taking this abuse for ground to proceed upon, caused the town bell at St Marton's to be rung that the commonality may be summoned together into a body. Which being begun they in an instant were in arms, some with bows and arrows, others with divers sorts of weapons. And then they, without any more ado, did in a furious and hostile manner set upon divers scholars, who at the time had not any offensive arms, no not so much as anything to defend themselves. The chancellor, perceiving what great danger they were in, caused the university bell at St Mary's to be rung out, whereupon the scholars got bows and arrows, and maintained the fight with the townsmen until dark night.
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The life of the university and the life of the town intermingle in history and intermingle in these walks.
The mixture has not always been comfortable. On the wall of the building society at the south west corner of the crossroads is a plaque commemorating a riot at the Swindlestock Tavern between students and townspeople in 1354. The affray lasted 3 days, and by the end 60 students had lost their lives. For five hundred years afterwards the mayor and burgesses of the town were compelled to attend a service of penance in St Mary's church.
On which cheery note we examine the tower, then begin our walk along the high street, to the east.
This was originally the tower of St Martin's church, the rest of which was demolished in 1896 as part of a road widening scheme. The two little Roman soldiers on the face of the tower(known as the quarter boys) strike the bells every quarter hour.
The tower is the first of several places where we can climb for a view across the rooftops. Not the ultimate rooftop view in Oxford, but from the top of the tower there is a fine view along the high street, and the beginning of our walk.
We return to this point at the end of this walk, and those unfamiliar with Oxford may prefer to leave the rooftop view until they are better able to recognise the different buildings.
Now move on to the High Street, heading east, on the right hand side
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