Rainy day in Oxford

13 May 2007

Well after spending most of the Saturday inside because of the yucky weather outside, I decided I needed to make the most of a weekend with no plans and took the bus to Oxford with a friend for the day. There was some pretty nice architecture around even if there weren't any blue skies : )










Well, turns out Oxford University isnt actually just one university campus, but rather 39 seperate colleges offering the same 17 courses but each with their own style (this was news to me) so we went to check out one of the more famous ones - Christ Church. Oxford's largest and most magnificent college, it incorporates England's smallest Cathedral, which is also the college chapel. Tom Tower, designed by Christopher Wren contains the great bell weighing over seven tonnes, known as Great Tom. The pictures below are from the garden of Christ Church with the Hall in the background and the student residences. This college has it all: great history, great students, a great quad, the largest hall, a cathedral, albeit a small one, for its chapel, an art gallery and beautiful meadows bordering the river Isis. Famous students included 13 Prime Ministers, Albert Einstein and C.L.Dogson (pen-name Lewis Carroll) who spent 48 years at Christ Church as both a student and teacher of maths and famously wrote Alice in Wonderland for Alice Lidell - the daughter of the dean.










As well as being fairly historically famous, many of the scenes in the Harry Potter feature films are shot in various locations of the College. Christ Church's Great Hall (in the pictures below) and grand staircase were the inspiration for Hogwarts Hall in the Harry Potter films so we had to get a couple of pictures here before heading back to London later that evening - nice little day trip out of the city : )










Me in the quad with Tom Tower in the background, probably not looking too much like your typical Oxford student : P