I have one piece of advice to start this post: do not drive in the city of Oxford! You have been warned. Parking is difficult to find, and when you eventually find a spot, any spot (you've spent well over half an hour looking for a place to park, vainly following road signs that seem to suggest that parking is this way, although you are sure that you're driving around in circles), parking turns out to be very expensive.
A family from church had (very generously) loaned us their car for a few days so, armed with our sat nav, we set off for Oxfordshire. Our plan was to spend the afternoon in Oxford and I'd compiled a list of things to see whilst we were there. On the way there, we saw signs recommending the use of the Park 'n' Ride facilities (park your car outside the city; catch a bus in) and, in hindsight, that's what we should have done. The bus would have dropped us off in the centre of town, we could of called in at the information centre for a map, and spent the rest of the day wandering. Instead, we followed our sat nav's instructions, which directed us to the centre of town right where roads had been blocked off and, more importantly, there was no parking. What followed was a rather random series of turns in an overcast, unfamiliar city. We saw Magdalen College (on my list) through the car window. That was where Tom had to reverse down a narrow road because there was a truck blocking our way. Meanwhile, we were going to have to make a decision when we finally found a park whether we found a place to buy lunch or whether we actually saw something in this famous university city.
It was by pure coincidence that we managed to find a park near something we wanted to see. We were madly following the signs towards parking spaces when, hey, there's the museum of natural history, and here's a spare park. £3 for two hours. Oh well! I hope the museum has a cafe, because we have three hungry people here and one is making an awful fuss.
The museum did not have a cafe, but it did have dinosaurs and dodos, so one hour and one KitKat later, we were on the move again in search of Christ Church College. Now, this is when things started to get really expensive.
This time we actually managed to find a pay and display car park (£3 for 2 hours) and so decided to park the car and head off in the direction that the sat nav had suggested. It was a round-about route, and took us over twice as long as if we'd actually known where to go, but we arrived and it was beautiful.
Unfortunately, it was just after I took this photo that other camera lens fell out of the camera bag. Ouch! Something expensive is broken inside it and we're not sure whether to get it fixed or buy a new lens. However, we continued to look around Christ Church College. There are all sorts of famous alumni, but the only one I can think of is John Wesley. What interested me more was that the staircase leading to the dining hall (which we saw) and the dining hall (which we didn't see as there was a function on) were used as locations for the Harry Potter films. This next photo was taken in the Cloisters.
After exploring Christ Church College, which included going in to the chapel, we headed down the road to climb one of the towers to get a good view of the city. The first tower we came to was the tallest but, unfortunately, was too steep and windy and refused admittance to children under 5. So we settled for the oldest tower: the tower of St. Michael at North Gate. The church dates from c. 1000-50, and is mentioned in the Domesday book. As with all old buildings that claim to be of a certain period, only part of the church dates from that period but, in this case, it is the tower (the rest of the church was rebuilt in the 13th century.)
Halfway up the tower is a door.
This was the door to the Bocardo prison, behind which were held Cranmer, Ridley and Latimer. Obviously, the prison wasn't located halfway up an old church tower, but the door has been moved here and stuck to a wall.
Once at the top of the tower, there was plenty of room to see a skyline that was, frankly, disappointing. Tom took enough photos to get a panorama and this is the best view of the bunch. Looking at it now, it doesn't look too bad, but at the time I was struck by how dirty and cluttered it was. At street level, the main streets have some impressive looking buildings; but up high you can see all the ugly buildings that are tucked away, that many buildings only have an impressive-looking facade, and that the dominant structure on the skyline is a crane. Tom and I were struck by how we are spoiled, living so close to Bath. Oxford has many heritage-listed buildings, but Bath is a heritage-listed city.
It was at this point that the other expensive thing happened. We'd given ourselves enough time to get back to the car (this time in a direct route,) only to find that we'd misread the parking fee. It was £3.50 for two hours. As we'd paid £3, we only one hour of parking (for which the fee was £2) and a parking fine... for £100. Sigh! Do not drive in the city of Oxford!
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