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Bart, Ann, Mark & Jim wandering and catching up in The University Parks

Our penultimate stop on this nine-week exploration of the UK was Oxford, home of course to Oxford University, the oldest university in the English-speaking world. (The oldest university in Europe, if you’re wondering, is the University of Bologna while the oldest university in the world is the University of Al Quaraouiyine in Fez, Morocco. Yeah, I didn’t know that either.) Back when we were in Cambridge University we learned that the town was named because early on it had one of the first bridges over the River Cam. And Oxford? You might guess that it got its name because at a narrow and shallow part of the Thames River oxen would ford the river. Who’d have guessed? At any rate no expansive trip through England would be complete without at least a quick stop here.

I have to say, we both found it hard to fall in love with Oxford. Maybe it was the cold, overcast, occasionally rainy weather, maybe it was just that we’ve overloaded on old historic cities in England, but first impressions weren’t great. Both of us though came to really like the city. I’ll explain why.

Imposing architecture and threatening skies in Oxford

First, though, a highlight of the stop was a quick visit with our old Cambridge, MA neighbors Bart and Ann. They were in the area visiting a cousin of Bart’s (his only first cousin it turns out which I find amusing; you see, I have literally dozens of first cousins) and so they drove over to Oxford for lunch with us. Walking around with them a bit, having lunch, and just catching up was great fun.

And speaking of lunch. Way back early in the trip in Cambridge, England, we discovered an Indian restaurant called Dishoom. We loved it. We found that there was a Dishoom in Edinburg and loved that one too. But there were no more Dishooms as we wandered through Scotland, Wales, and back into England until Oxford. I was a little concerned that we had built our hopes up too high and I’d be disappointed but no worries – it was as fabulous as we remembered. So we went back for lunch the next day, too. And to make it all better yet, we’ve learned that they’re opening their first U.S. restaurant some time next year in New York City – lower Manhattan even. I’m afraid we’ll never eat at home again!

Lunch at Dishoom. Or I should say, one of our lunches at Dishoom.

On our arrival day, then, we spent much of it with Bart & Ann. The next day we scheduled a tour of Oxford University with Alumni Tours, the same company we used in Cambridge. As the name suggests they have alumni giving the tours (though in this case she was a current student, but close enough) and they can give a real flavor for the school. She showed us around a bit, told some good stories, and it was OK. Not really worth two hours, and maybe that’s why neither of us fell in love with the city right away.

Rose, our tour guide, is studying physics and philosophy. I suspect she’s pretty smart.

But then when we had time on our own, we really came to appreciate it. I wandered around the core city for a while and went into a bookstore called Blackwell’s. Today it’s a huge store and part of a large chain of academic bookstores but it started a tiny shop, literally just 12 square feet. It grew and grew, taking more floors and more buildings and even remained family owned until 2022. I could have spent hours in there wandering around finding unusual and interesting books. I have to say if you enjoy reading British history, this is the place for you.

An underground space at Blackwell’s

After an hour or so there I looked at the map and realized that Oxford sits on the Thames River, so I figured I’d go see what the river looked like this far north of London. And there I discovered this great walking/running/biking path along the river, plus – this being a college town of course – lots of people in various crew configurations. It was beautiful.

It’s worth adding just how much I’ve loved these trails in England. Many of them (including the trail along the Thames River here) are part of the National Cycle Network, some 13,000 miles of shared use paths, disused railways, minor roads, canal towpaths and traffic-calmed routes in towns and cities. I’ve walked, run, and bicycled on a number of these routes and they’re usually well marked, gently engineered, and in reasonably good condition. And what I honestly love is that they’re really well used; you always see people out getting their exercise and enjoying nature. It’s truly a fabulous national asset.

Lots of shells out on the Thames

OK, so that’s how I fell in love with Oxford. And Mark? It really wasn’t until our last morning before checking out and heading to our final destination that it all clicked for him. After breakfast he went out and decided to pay the £10 (roughly $13.50) to tour Magdalen College. You see, for the most part tourists can’t get in to see the grounds of most of the colleges that make up Oxford University. The tour we did took us into Trinity College and a little bit of the Divinity School, but that was it. But unlike Cambridge University, here in Oxford the colleges will sell you access.

So with an hour or so to kill Mark bought his ticket to Magdalen College and just thought it was beautiful. I mean, it even had its own deer park! Seeing the University close up like that from the inside was all it took. So while after a day-and-a-half Mark wasn’t too keen on Oxford by the time we had to leave he was wishing we’d had another day here. But we don’t. One more quick stop and then it’s back to New York.

The deer park at Magdalen College

While they have to pose for tourists, apparently the deer get a 10-minute break every so often

On the edge of Magdalen College

Christ Church college and it’s War Memorial Garden. That’s the Cathedral up there and oddly this is one city where we didn’t go into the Cathedral. Just never got around to it…

The Thames River in Oxford with a faint rainbow barely visible

A cozy breakfast cappuccino with rainy streets outside

The Bridge of Sighs. When Cambridge University built one, Oxford had to, too. Allegedly, this one is one inch wider than the one in Cambridge.

A real rainbow

The Radcliffe Camera, named after the funder named Radcliffe and the Latin name for room, camera. It’s a circular library which … doesn’t really work well when you think of what book shelves look like. Hint – they’re not curved.

Part of the grounds of Trinity College

And one last view of Magdalen College

Does it get more iconic than this?

From Devon we took three trains to get to Winchester, where we camped out for three days to do an extra deep dive into English history. Why Winchester? As the first capital of England this town is truly packed with early English history. It also happens to be less than an hour by car from Stonehenge. And it’s even closer to the great cathedral city of Salisbury, and I’m a sucker for a great English cathedral town.

Now first let’s talk about Stonehenge. We sort of felt we couldn’t do a nine-week survey of Great Britain and NOT see Stonehenge. If we didn’t go now, when would we? It almost felt like an obligation more than something I was excited about doing, especially since the public transportation options were sort of messy. I imagined some placed so packed with tourists you could hardly get a decent picture. I proposed not going at all, but Jim insisted we should do it while we were so close. So I arranged to get a driver for the day to take us to Stonehenge in the morning, and then to Salisbury for lunch and a cathedral visit.

This place is truly stunning

Stonehenge is 2 km from the visitor center where you start your visit. You then take a shuttle or a 30-minute walk to get to it. But if you drive into the area from the east, as we had done, you drive surprisingly close to it, giving you a sneak preview which we weren’t expecting at all. All of a sudden, there it was, right in front of our car, one of the most iconic sights on the globe before any tourists had even arrived. We couldn’t believe how cool it was!

This ancient site pre-dates “English” history by a very long time. The first monuments were built here around 5000 BC, and the present stones went up around 2500 BC. These were Neolithic farming people living in the Salisbury plain, who somehow organized a massive communal effort to build this. The largest stones, made of a hard sandstone called sarsen, weigh 25 tons each. They were hauled here from 20 miles away. Smaller stones on the inner circle are called bluestones, and they weigh only 2 to 5 tons each — but they were somehow transported here from western Wales over 150 miles away.

Nobody entirely understands why Stonehenge was built, though it certainly served as a burial site and a place of worship of some sort. It had astronomical and calendar functions. People probably believed the stones had special healing powers. And today it serves as a truly moving connection to our ancient past. We are very happy we went to see it!

This was really a magical visit

Couldn’t stop taking pictures

These sheep seemed pretty oblivious to the fact that they could just look up at Stonehenge anytime they want to

Our day trip to Stonehenge was paired with a lunchtime visit to Salisbury and its incredible Gothic cathedral. As you may have noticed in these pages, every cathedral in the country seems to have some claim of “biggest,” “tallest,” or “longest.” Salisbury’s claim is obvious from the moment you first catch sight of its massive steeple — the tallest in England. The cathedral was mostly built between 1220 and 1258, though the incredible tower took until 1330 to complete.

An entrance to the town of Salisbury

This towering spire of Salisbury Cathedral really grabs your attention. The clouds seemed to be competing for drama.

The nave of Salisbury Cathedral reflected in the baptismal font

Windows in Salisbury Cathedral

The cathedral facade

Only four original copies of Magna Carta from 1215 exist. We saw one earlier in Lincoln, but this one in Salisbury is the best preserved.

Look who I ran into in Salisbury

Now on to Winchester, which plays a huge role in early English history. In the 7th century AD it became the royal and ecclesiastical center of the kingdom of Wessex, one of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms competing for power in Great Britain. In the 9th century King Alfred the Great made it the principal royal city of his growing kingdom. And in the 10th and 11th centuries it emerged as the capital of a unified kingdom as King Æthelstan and his successors consolidated power over all of England.

This statue of Alfred the Great, considered the first true king of England, was built in 1901 to commemorate the 1000th anniversary of his death

Winchester remained the capital of England even after the Danes invaded and took control between 1016 and 1035. Only after England fell in 1066 to the Norman invader, William the Conqueror, did the capital functions gradually begin moving to London. By the mid-12th century that process was mostly complete, though Winchester remained symbolically important for centuries.

This history made Winchester Cathedral an especially fascinating place to visit. Many of the kings of Wessex were buried in an earlier cathedral, then moved to this “new” cathedral in the 11th century. They bear legendary names like King Egbert of Wessex, King Æthelwulf of Wessex, King Alfred the Great, and King Canute the Great (the Danish invader). They also included King William II “Rufus,” the unpopular son of William the Conqueror, who died in an “accident” while hunting with nobles. His younger brother conveniently appeared quickly at Winchester to seize the treasury and the throne as Henry I.

In the 1500s the very rich and powerful Bishop of Winchester, Richard Fox, did some reconstruction at the cathedral. In the process he moved the royal bones into lovely painted “mortuary boxes” and put them on display above the choir. These became known as Fox’s Boxes. During the English Civil War in the 1640s, radical parliamentary supporters tore the boxes opened and scattered the bones. They were subsequently recovered and returned to the boxes without any knowledge of who was who. In recent years, scientists have used advanced procedures to begin to reassemble and identify the remains, so that they may one day be returned to their proper places in Fox’s Boxes.

I was fascinated by these stories and by a video in the cathedral about that forensic research. This and so many other stories made Winchester and its cathedral really come alive.

The 11th century Winchester Cathedral, jam-packed with early English history

One of the fascinating mortuary boxes containing the bones of early kings of Wessex and England

Fox’s Boxes line a railing above the choir area of Winchester Cathedral

Winchester Cathedral claims to have the longest Gothic nave in the world — and the oldest intact wooden choir

Writer Jane Austen’s grave in the cathedral

Strolling along Winchester’s lovely River Itchen

Dining at Chesil Rectory, a wonderful restaurant in the oldest house in Winchester, built by a local merchant around 1450. In 1554, Queen Mary I (“Bloody Mary”) married the future King Philip II of Spain in Winchester Cathedral. The lavish ceremony nearly bankrupted the town, so Mary kindly gifted this house to the local convent.