Oxfordshire

“ She was connected with a great many families of yeomen and lower gentry in Oxfordshire, and, being for the time less embarrassed in money matters than for many years, she made (1657–9) several long visits in different parts of the county. ”

“ These two join the Evenlode exactly at the point where it enters Oxfordshire, and the combination produces a little river of some pretension, which enjoys a somewhat more rapid descent for some miles from this junction, and almost prattles as it passes the ancient abbey-lands of Bruerne and the picturesque spire of Shipton church. ”

“ Oxford (Fig. 25) .—This castle was built in 1071 by Robert d’Oilgi (or d’Oilly) , a Norman who received large estates in Oxfordshire. [557] Oxford was a burgus in Saxon times, and is one of those mentioned in the Burghal Hidage. Domesday tells us that the king has twenty mural mansions there, which had belonged to Algar, Earl of Mercia, and that they were called mural mansions because their owners had to repair the city wall at the king’s behest, a regulation probably as old as the days of Alfred. ”

“ Shakespeare's frequent horseback journeys from London to Stratford, and from Stratford to London, must have made him familiar with the county of Oxfordshire. ”

“ Frideswide, Place names of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, Berkshire Wills, Oxford and the Neighbourhood during the Civil War, Hearne’s Collections, vol. IV., and other volumes are in preparation.)
A full description of the Society’s work and objects can be obtained by application to any of the Committee (Rev. C. W. Boase, Exeter College; Rev. Andrew Clark, 30 Warnborough Road; C. R. L. Fletcher, Esq., 22 Norham Gardens; P. Lyttelton Gell, Esq., Headington Hill; and Falconer Madan, Esq. (Hon. Treasurer) , 90 Banbury Road, Oxford) . ”

“ Banbury.—A little Oxfordshire town, famed for its cross and its cakes; but the cross is modern, and so is the church.
View larger image.
View larger image. Loop 8. OXFORD TO COVENTRY.
There are two main roads running to Woodstock from Oxford, lying parallel to each other; the western one should be selected. It passes through a well-wooded country, part of the valleys of the Thames and Evenlode rivers. Upon reaching Woodstock, Blenheim Palace claims attention, with the entrance to the park lying upon the left. ”

“ Such another patch is there, of Glocestershire not far from long Compton, but lieng in Oxford countie: & a péece of Worcestershire, directlie betwéene it & Glocestershire. Glocester hath the third péece vpon the north side of the Winrush neere Falbrocke, as Barkeshire hath one parcell also vpon the selfe side of the same water, in the verie edge of Glocestershire: likewise an other in Oxfordshire, not verie farre from Burford: and the third ouer against Lach lade, which [Page 261] which is parted from the main countie of Barkeshire, by a little strake of Oxfordshire. ”

“ Nottinghamshire.—Thoroton's History of the County, with additions by Thoresby, plates, 3 vols. 4to. very neat. 2l 15s. 1797.
Oxfordshire.—Plat's History of the County, best edition, folio, fine copy, calf. 1l. 10s. 1705.
—— Skelton's Antiquities of the County, fine plates, royal 4to. calf extra. 2l. 8s.
—— The same, with the Oxonia Antiqua Restaurata, the Colleges, Halls, &c. and the Record of Oxford Founders, 4 vols. royal 4to. cloth. 6l. 10s. (Published at 24l.) 1823-8. ”

“ See note, l. 156, Sohrab and Rustum.
30. Oxford towers. "Oxford, the county town of Oxfordshire and the seat of one of the most ancient and celebrated universities in Europe, is situated amid picturesque environs at the confluence of the Cherwell and the Thames (often called in its upper course the Isis) . It is surrounded by an amphitheatre of gentle hills, the tops of which command a fine view of the city with its domes and towers."—BAEDEKER'S Great Britain, in his Handbooks for Travellers. In writing of Oxford, Hawthorne says: "The world, surely, has not another place like Oxford ”

“ On 4 April 1739 he received institution to the valuable rectory of Witney, Oxfordshire, on the resignation of his father, whom he also succeeded as prebendary of Westminster, 17 Oct. 1744. In the last-named year he became one of the royal chaplains in ordinary. In 1747 he was appointed rector of Islip, Oxfordshire, and held that living along with Witney. ”

“ John's Hospital, Northampton—Stoke-Say Castle, Shropshire—Coggs, Oxfordshire—Cottesford, Oxfordshire—Parsonage House, West Tarring, Sussex—Archdeacon's House, Peterborough—Crowhurst, Sussex—Bishop's Palace, Wells—Woodcroft Castle, Northamptonshire—Old Rectory House, West Deane, Sussex—Acton Burnell, Shropshire—Somerton Castle, Lincolnshire—Old Soar, Kent—The King's Hall at Winchester—The Priory, Winchester—Stranger's Hall, Winchester—House at Oakham, known as Flore's House—Thame, Oxfordshire—Chipping-Norton, Oxfordshire—Middleton Cheney, Oxfordshire—Sutton Courtney, Berkshire. ”

“ How different Oxford looks when the road to Cowley Marsh is dumb with dust, when the heat seems almost tropical, and by the drowsy banks of the Cherwell you might almost expect some shy southern water-beast to come crashing through the reeds! And such a day, again, is unlike the bright weather of late September, when all the gold and scarlet of Bagley Wood are concentrated in the leaves that cover the walls of Magdalen with an imperial vesture.
Our memories of Oxford, if we have long made her a Castle of Indolence, vary no less than do the shifting aspects of her scenery. ”

“ And fifty years later, his son, Charles II, triumphed over the Whig Parliament at Oxford, which was trying by factious violence to force the Exclusion Bill on a reluctant king and nation. Few towns beside London have been the scene of so many great historical events; yet any one who looks below the surface will attach less importance to these than to the great changes in thought which have found in Oxford their inspiration, and which make it a city of pilgrimage for those interested in the development of England's real life. ”

“ Oxford stood by itself in its meadows by the rivers, having its relations with all England, but, like its sister at Cambridge, living a life of its own, unlike that of any other spot in England, with its privileged powers, and exemptions from the general law, with its special mode of government and police, its usages and tastes and traditions, and even costume, which the rest of England looked at from the outside, much interested but much puzzled, or knew only by transient visits. ”

“ The material beauty of Oxford is great—the situation, in a rich valley bounded by softly flowing rivers, fine—the domes, and spires, and old grey towers rising in clusters, prepare the mind of the approaching traveller for the city where the old colleges and churches, planting out and almost composing it, afford at every bend of the long streets, at every turn of the narrow thoroughfares, some grand picture, or charming architectural effect; even our Quakers are proud of Oxford in England when they travel in America. ”

“ The ancient nucleus of the city stands on a low gravel ridge between the Thames and its tributary the Cherwell, which here flow with meandering courses and many branches and backwaters through flat meadows. Modern extensions of Oxford cross both rivers, the suburbs of Osney and Botley lying to the west, Grandpont to the south, and St Clement’s to the east beyond the Cherwell. To the north is a large modern residential district. The low meadow land is bounded east and west by well-wooded hills, rising rather abruptly, though only to a slight elevation, seldom exceeding 500 ft. ”

“ There is a beautiful, sloping acre, not far from Oxford, which a number of great elms divide into aisles and nave, while at one end a curving hawthorn and maple hedge completes them with an apse. Towards Oxford, the space is almost shut in by remote elms. On one side I hear the soft and sibilant fall of soaking grass before the scythe. The rain and sun alternating are like two lovers in dialogue; the rain smiles from the hills when the sun shines, and the sun also while the rain is falling. ”

“ Beautiful as youth and venerable as age, she lies in a purple cup of the low hills, and the water-meads of Isis and the gentle slopes beyond are besprent with her grey “steeple towers, and spires whose silent finger points to heaven.” And all around her the country is a harmony in green—the deep, cool greens of the lush grass, the green of famous woods, the soft, juicy landscapes of the Thames Valley.
You may approach Oxford in summer by road, or rail, or river. Most wise and most fortunate perhaps is he who can obtain his first view of Oxford from Headington Hill, her Fiesole. ”

“ Then, if you consider the upper half of that valley, the view is from the ridge of the Berkshire hills, or, better still, from Cumnor, or from the clump of trees above Faringdon. From such look-outs the astonishing loneliness which England has had the strength to preserve in this historic belt of land profoundly strikes a man. You can see to your left and, a long way off, the hill where, as is most probable, Alfred thrust back the Pagans, and so saved one-half of Christendom. Oxford is within your landscape. ”

“ They draw near to Oxford, but when a mile or two from Abingdon are checked by many waters, and take refuge in a house in a wood belonging to the monastery of that place. Nearly seven hundred years ago! And yet they come into the dream as if it all had happened yesterday, and they were still to set on foot the labours of their order in the low wooden slums of St. Ebbe's, and still to train such men as Duns Scotus and Roger Bacon.
And the scene changes as the eye follows the river to the city walls. There is a mellower sunshine on the plain, and autumn mists hang lightly over tower and spire. ”

“ The material Oxford of our times is not more unlike the Oxford of low wooden booths and houses, and of wooden spires and towers, than the life led in its streets was unlike the academic life of to-day. The Conquest brought no more quiet times, but the whole city was wrecked, stormed, and devastated, before the second period of its history began, before it was the seat of a Norman stronghold, and one of the links of the chain by which England was bound. ”

“ Here half-naked men may have trapped the beaver in the Cherwell, and hither they may have brought home the boars which they slew in the trackless woods of Headington and Bagley. It is with the life of historical Oxford, however, and not with these fancies, that we are concerned, though these papers have no pretension to be a history of Oxford. A series of pictures of men’s life here is all they try to sketch. ”

“ The University of Oxford has interests, feelings, a general corporate being, distinct from the city of Oxford, just as the city of Oxford has interests, feelings, a general corporate being, distinct from the county of Oxford. So, if one were maliciously given, one might go on to argue that the choice of a representative made by the borough of Woodstock seems to show that the inhabitants of that borough have something in them which makes them distinct from University, county, city, or any other known division of mankind. ”

“ But there are so many people, to whom the human interest in the fairest city counts for more than all the rest, that it is time to wander among the quadrangles, the halls, the chapels, and the other ancient fabrics that speak of the university life of Oxford. As we pass in through many a massive gateway, tread many a stone-paved path, climb many an old oak stair worn by the feet of many generations, it is strange if no strand of sentiment puts us in touch with some of those who have passed that way before. ”

“ A civil farmer's wife, a very common character in most parts of England, is, I am sorry to say, somewhat too much of a rarity about Oxford; whether their tempers are too severely tried by the "fast men," who hunt drags and ride steeple-chases to the detriment of young wheat and new-made fences; or by the reading-men, who, in their innocence, make pertinacious visits in search of strawberries and cream in the month of March, or call for the twentieth time to enquire the nearest way to Oxford, (being ignorant of all topography but that of ancient Rome and Athens;) ”

“ During the long reign of Henry III, the Patent, Close, and Liberate Rolls contain only three grants of money to the house of the Minorites at Oxford, and all of them are due to exceptional circumstances. They are, ten marks for the support of a provincial chapter in 1238, 60s. for their houses in 1245 in lieu of six oaks which the king had before given them, and three marks for the fabric of their church in 1246 [25] . The alms to the house at Oxford are almost wholly in kind, and consist chiefly of supplies of firewood from the royal forests round Oxford. ”

“ In these buildings, then, the history of Norman Oxford is written, so far as history can be written in stone; yet here and there about the city are to be seen structures which, although two or three centuries younger, have an appearance hardly less venerable. Year after year the aged walls and portals are thronged with fresh generations of the youth of England; and it is in this combination of youth and age that no little of the charm of Oxford lies. ”

“ To Oxford belongs the honour of having been the first to present on the stage this noble play, and the production which I saw last week was in every way worthy of that lovely town, that mother of sweetness and of light. For, in spite of the roaring of the young lions at the Union, and the screaming of the rabbits in the home of the vivisector, in spite of Keble College, and the tramways, and the sporting prints, Oxford still remains the most beautiful thing in England, and nowhere else are life and art so exquisitely blended, so perfectly made one. ”