Dreaming Spires and Limestone Mandala: Oxford’s Secret History

5 days ago
8 min read

Dr. Orton spent a year studying for her Masters’ degree in the historic city of Oxford. Here, she lets us into the secrets of Oxford slang, its literary history and world-class university and the city’s best drinking-spots.

My time as a student at Oxford University flew by quickly. I was researching Himalayan religions, studying Tibetan and doing fieldwork in the Indian Himalayas all over the course of one academic year, so there was a lot to cram in. I did have the chance to explore the city’s different areas—from relaxed Jericho by the Canal, to leafy Summertown with its Victorian townhouses and terraces, to Central Oxford with its beautiful college buildings.

I recently returned to Oxford to give a talk on my research on hidden lands and invisible entities in the Himalayas. Walking around Oxford, I noticed that the city held on to some of its own secrets.

In the tenth century, Oxenaforda (“Ford of the Oxen”) was an important frontier town between the Saxon kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex. The Normans recognised its importance and built a castle there. Today, Oxford is renowned for its world-class university, its vibrant intellectual life and the (often esoteric-seeming) customs and lexicon of its student residents.

Oxford’s two rivers, the Cherwell and the Thames feature heavily in the life of the city. The part of the River Thames that runs through Oxford is called the Isis and the university rowers you will inevitably see are Oxford Blues (people who play sport for the university).

Oxford University

Oxford is one of the world’s oldest universities second only to the University of Bologna. Teaching in Oxford goes back to the eleventh century and today it is one of the world’s most prestigious institutions.

Oxford gets its nickname, “the city of dreaming spires” from Matthew Arnold’s Victorian poem Thyrsis. Arnold was commemorating his friend, Arthur Hugh Clough in the poem. His “dreaming spires” refer to the limestone buildings of Oxford University—a honey-coloured mix of gothic, baroque, and neoclassical styles.

These buildings have historically been built from Headington stone, from local quarries. This is Jurassic-period Corallian limestone, created by the fossilisation of coral reefs when Oxford was under the sea. Today, many buildings are clad in Cotswold, Bath, and Portland stone due to the deterioration of the original stone.

Some of my favourite features include Queen’s college cupola, a dome-shaped structure on the façade of the college on high street. Inside the cupola is Henry Cheere’s statue of Queen Caroline, wife of George II.

There is also the iconic Radcliffe camera, part of the University’s world-famous Bodleian Library and Christopher Wren’s Sheldonian Theatre, where Oxford students matriculate (admission to the university) and graduate in Latin-speaking ceremonies. They’ll be wearing subfusc (from the Latin sub fuscus; “very dark”), the academic dress which must also be worn for exams.

Oxford University is made up of colleges—small, multidisciplinary communities to which students belong as well as their academic department. My college was Pembroke College, but I loved visiting the deer park at Magdalen College (pronounced “maudlin”) with its herd of fallow deer.

Another beautiful space is Christchurch College meadow with its herd of pedigree Old English Longhorn cattle. That’s where Lewis Carroll got his inspiration for Alice in Wonderland. Christ Church is the Cathedral seat of Oxford, so that’s where you should head if you’re looking for “Oxford Cathedral.”

Students and teaching staff at Oxford are also members of the JCR (Junior Common Room; the undergraduate students of a college), MCR (Middle Common Room; the graduate or fourth year students of a college) or the SCR (Senior Common Room; Fellows and College lecturers). JCR, MCR and SCR are also the name of the rooms in college used for socialising by these groups.

Socialising is a big part of college life, including bops (“big open parties”) or formal dinners presided over by the High Table (“the table in a college dining hall, at which the Head of House and Fellows dine). Bad behaviour will result in being sent to the Dean (person responsible for supervising the conduct in the college)—known as being “deaned.”

If you’re not a student, you can still access these beautiful colleges as a visitor. Ask at the porters’ lodge (“plodge” in Oxford slang) about visiting or go along to one of the free Evensong services held by many of the colleges.

Finally, the University’s Ashmolean Museum houses their art and archaeology collection. Founded in 1683, it is Britain’s oldest public museum. Admission is free!

Of Books and Beer

Oxford has a long history of great literature. Lewis Carroll—whose real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson—wrote Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland when he was teaching Mathematics at Christ Church college. His friendship with the children of Henry Liddell, Dean of the College (particularly the Dean’s daughter Alice Liddell) inspired the story during a boating trip in 1862.

C. S. Lewis, author of the Narnia series, studied at University College and was elected as Fellow, later Professor, of Magdalen College.

Oxford is also the city in which J. R. R. Tolkien wrote The Hobbit and a lot of The Lord of the Rings, while he was teaching at Pembroke College (as well as writing his famous work on the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf. Tolkien himself remembers his inspiration for this in a letter to W. H. Auden: “On a blank leaf I scrawled: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit”. I did not and do not know why.”

Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited follows Charles Ryder, as he befriends Sebastian Flyte, younger son of the Marquis of Marchmain of Brideshead Castle, at Oxford and lets us into the world of a privileged, Catholic family. Waugh admits to wasting a lot of time when he was a student at Hertford College and many people like his book for its portrayal of idleness, escapism and aesthetic pleasure.

Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series is set in a parallel Oxford! The Pitt Rivers Museum is where Lyra finds out about trepanned skulls in The Subtle Knife and Exeter College is the inspiration for Jordan College in the books.

Oxford was also a filming location in the Harry Potter films: Hogwarts Infirmary in Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone was filmed in the Divinity School; Harry walked through the Hogwarts library hidden under the invisibility cloak in the Bodleian’s Duke Humfrey’s Library; Christ Church College was used for the entrance scene in which Professor McGonagall meets Harry, Ron and Hermione and New College cloisters feature in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

It’s almost mandatory to meet in one of the city’s many pubs to discuss these great works and other erudite matters! As a student, some of my favourite pubs and bars included Freud’s, a café-bar in the former Victorian Greek Revival Church of St. Paul. This was in Jericho, a suburb that is just outside the old city wall. It’s thought that travellers could rest in Jericho if they arrived in Oxford after the gates had closed.

Right in the centre of the city, The Bear is the oldest pub in Oxford, having opened in 1242. You’ll find it just off the High Street, on Alfred Street, with a seating area off Blue Boar Street. The White Horse is Oxford’s smallest (and cosiest!) pub. It’s on Broad Street, opposite the Sheldonian Theatre and in between the two entrances to the Norrington Room of Blackwell’s bookshop.

Secrets of Oxford

Most of the things I’ve mentioned so far have been those things that make the city so well known (even if the slang does seem to be a bit esoteric!)—and it would be a shame to miss out on these. But don’t discount the possibility of discovering some of Oxford’s secrets.

For many, the discovery of “hidden” Oxford will depend on their reason for being in the city. As a student, I belonged to the Faculty of Oriental Studies, now renamed to the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. This change in name reflects Oxford’s changing relationship with the study of non-Western civilisations since the end of the British Empire, but you can still see evidence of the old ways hidden in the limestone.

If you go to the corner of Broad Street and Catte Street in the centre of Oxford, you will see find the Indian Institute building, which is now the Oxford Martin School. Look out for tigers, lions, elephants, and Hindu gods carved into the building’s façade. These reveal the Institute’s original purpose: to create a library, lecture rooms and museum to encourage the study of India, which was governed by the British Empire—also to train Indian Civil Service candidates who were attending Oxford.

I remember when I was a student there going to a watercolour exhibition called From Mandala to Dreaming Spires. The artist, Oxford graduate student Brenda Li, was inspired by the Tibetan mandala and her time in Oxford: “One sunny afternoon while strolling along a back street, the painter caught sight of her Mandala manifesting itself vividly in a creeper-wreathed circular window. Then she gladly invited one of the spires in the skyline to enter it, and painted the first of a series of four works called The Dreaming Spires.”

As a student of Tibetan, I too, began seeing “mandalas” in the circular architecture of Oxford’s back streets. That was nearly twenty years ago—and I still notice them when I return to the city today.

Find Out More

Dr. Orton’s academic article, ‘Subjugation and Survival: Animal and Nature Narratives in the Himalayas’ describes her research in Oxford and subsequent fieldwork in the Himalayas!

Dr. Orton also explores the secrets of other European cities in her blog posts about Durham, Siena, Bologna, Berlin, Athens and Leicester. If you’d like to learn more about Historical Mysteries, we have suggestions for a customisable course on this on our History page. Alternatively, if you’re interested in the rare, the niche and the esoteric aspects of the world’s most fascinating cities, take a look at our Interdisciplinary course, The Secret History of Cities.

These courses are templates of possible routes of study and can be combined, adapted, or designed from scratch to suit your interests and goals. Dr. Orton will work with you to design a course of private tutorials tailored to your needs, ability and schedule—whether you are undertaking your own research for an independent project, writing a book or simply have a personal interest. Click the link to find out what it’s like to work with her.

Undertake Your Own Research Project

Working on your own independent research project needn’t be a lonely task: Dr. Orton works with other independent scholars on projects in conservation and the humanities. Contact us for a chat with her.

If you’re not ready to reach out yet, follow our research methods series on this blog for more ideas! Dr. Orton has written posts on the importance of independent research and how to get started with building your own approach to ethical, people-centred fieldwork.

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