“In Oxford, you turn a corner and your life changes” was once written on a hoarding protecting the workers, as they constructed a new library. I remember looking at that quotation for some time, eventually agreeing with the statement and wondering why it seemed so true?
On one level, it was the best of English humour, simultaneously obvious but subtle: the quotation was printed on the corner of the hoarding, and all you had to do was walk around the corner into Broad Street and a whole new library would appear (once they’d finished constructing it) with all its treasures enshrined inside, waiting to be discovered and thereby change the life of the discoverer – or the reader. The subtlety became clearer when I realised that for many people there seem to be two Oxfords: the Town and the University, or the Town and the Gown as they have more or less affectionately been called down the centuries. Just like Lewis Carroll’s fictional Alice in Wonderlandor Alice through the looking glass, when you turn the corner, go through the rabbit hole or look in the mirror (“looking glass” is a 19thcentury word for “mirror”) from one Oxford to another, your life truly does change.
JK Rowling’s Harry Potter discovered this, the first time he set foot in the Dining Hall at Hogwarts – sorry, Christ Church College. All those clever people in long rows in gowns, all those riveting conversations. Any one of them could change your life, change your view. They are still there, of course, every night in most of the 46 Colleges of Oxford University, at least during Term Time. Harry was less impressed when he turned the corner into New College’s 14thCentury Cloisters, though. He ran into Malfoy casually lounging on a more than 200-year old tree, and someone had even desecrated the Cloister’s pristine lawn with a strange futuristic-looking pointy metal centrepiece (at least in the film version of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire). Whatever would Extinction Rebellion and Greta Thunberg think? Then Mad-Eye Moody turns him into a ferret. Quite a life-change.
Philip Pullman’s Lyra happily saunters between two Oxfords in a number of Pullman’s works, and you can understand how she must have felt as she slipped through the secret door she found leading from an oppressive Oxford Common room, full of sanctimonious old men, into the wonderful world of Exeter College’s Dining Hall full of Bright Young Things. The door is still there, but yes, you have to look for it, hidden flush in the wall panelling behind High Table.
To return to the Town – or more accurately the City of Oxford. Why is it called a City? Because it has a Cathedral – actually the smallest cathedral church in the UK, but still large enough to lend the status of “city” to this county town of Oxfordshire. With approximately 155 000 people living here, Oxford is the 52nd largest city in the United Kingdom and has one of the fastest growing – and most diverse – populations in this country. But even Oxford’s cathedral seems to exist at least partly in order to open your eyes and senses to the other Oxford – the “Gown” part of Town and Gown. To get into the cathedral you have to go through one of Oxford University’s richest, oldest and biggest colleges. The Cathedral and the College are known by the same name: “Christ Church”, but they both seem to serve as a portal from one Oxford to the other Oxford. Turn the corner from one to the other (and back again) and whether you meet your kindly Oxford professor or your benevolent God, or both, your life may well change.
Oxford has been changing people’s lives for centuries. Perhaps never more literally than in 1556, when three local Protestant Bishops, Ridley, Cranmer and Latimer, underwent a trial for heresy in the Church of St Mary – the University Church (note the oxymoron) – and were subsequently burnt to death at a stake set up in the middle of Broad Street. The tall spire of Martyrs’ Memorial in St Giles reminds passers-by of how dangerous some changes of life and opinions can be, when they are not tolerated by others.
As you gaze in awe at the beautiful and diverse buildings all over Oxford – whether they are owned and operated by the Town or the Gown – you are struck by the many architectural faces of this place – almost a different one around every corner. Inside the Bodleian Library Schools quadrangle there is a representation of the Five Orders of classical architecture – the Doric, the Ionic, the Tuscan, the Corinthian and the Composite. It may not be as life-changing, but at least this small treasure hidden away in Oxford helps the onlooker open his or her mind to new ways of seeing things.
Or what about the lanterns outside Brasenose College and the fawns carved high over its entrance, watching you protectively as you venture in? Is one of them Mr Tumnus, who looked after Lucy and all the Pevensie children as they wandered around all seven Chronicles of CS Lewis’s Narnia? It all depends on your perspective – that is, on your way of looking at things, once you’ve turned the corner and noticed them.
And that is the key, really. That is how doors can be opened and lives can be changed. The University of Oxford, one of the oldest universities in the English-speaking world, by using the powers of reading, writing, oratory and discussion, has been in the business of altering people’s beliefs, challenging their pre-conceived ideas, changing their lives for most of the UK’s history: since at least 1097 (only a generation after modern UK history apparently started, when William the Conqueror landed on these shores in 1066).
From its early days, Oxford has been a centre for lively controversy, with scholars involved in religious, political and scientific disputes. John Wycliffe, a 14th-century Master of Balliol, campaigned for a Bible in English, against the wishes of the Pope. In 1530, Henry VIII forced the University to accept his divorce from Catherine of Aragon.
The University supported the Royalist cause in the 17thcentury’s Civil War, and Charles I held a counter-Parliament in Convocation House. Then the Oxford philosopher John Locke, suspected of treason, was forced to flee the country.
Since the 18th century, Oxford has enjoyed scientific discovery and literary and religious revival. The Oxford poet Matthew Arnold famously called it “The City of Dreaming Spires” in the 19thcentury, as the Oxford Movement sought to revitalise the Roman Catholic aspects of the Anglican Church. The 20thand 21stcenturies have seen major new research being undertaken in natural and applied sciences and Medicine. Oxford is soon to open a new College, called Parks College, which will specialise in researching into Artificial Intelligence and the Ethics and Philosophy surrounding it.
If you look closely at the ancient buildings in New College Lane, having walked around the corner from the Radcliffe Camera – arguably the most photographed building in Oxford, set up by the Royal Surgeon, Dr John Radcliffe – and you amble dreamily under the Bridge of Sighs joining the two halves of Hertford College (modelled on the “Ponte dei Sospiri” in Venice) you will see a small blue plaque reminding the visitor of Edmund Halley, Professor of Geometry, who predicted the return of the comet that bears his name. It is next scheduled to turn its corner and appear in the skies over Oxford in 2062. I wonder how many lives the corners of this place will have changed by then? Will yours be among them?
© David Pope 2019