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Did
you know that...
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| Radcliffe
Camera |
Oxford has over 1,500 listed buildings including Gibb's Radcliffe
Camera, Wren's Sheldonian Theatre, and Hawksmoor's All Soul's.
Sir Christopher Wren designed Oxford's magnificent Sheldonian Theatre.
Oxford's Botanic Garden is the oldest in the world, having been
founded as a physic garden in 1621.
The
Holywell Music Room, built in 1748, is the oldest music performance
hall in Europe.
Blenheim
is a World Heritage Site - a claim that Oxford can't yet make, strangely.
Banbury
Cross is not the one in the famous nursery rhyme. That one was knocked
down by Puritans in July 1600. Whoops.
Oxford is the home of the world famous Oxford English Dictionary.
Best selling authors JRR Tolkein and CS Lewis were both Oxford dons,
and frequented its many pubs.
The
city hosts the annual Oxford
Literary Festival featuring the leading lights of the literary
world.
Oxford's
Philip
Pullman is the writer of His Dark Materials, the most successful
British fantasy trilogy since The Lord of the Rings.
Oxford
University is the oldest English-speaking university in the world.
Oxford
was and is home to the creators of Alice in Wonderland, The Lord
of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, Inspector Morse and the
His Dark Materials trilogy - which actually features several parallel
Oxfords, linked by a slit in the fabric of the universe at Summertown
and other locations in the City.
Oxford
has more published writers per square mile than anywhere else in
the world. Take care not to trip over one.
Books have been printed in Oxford since 1478.
Banbury was a centre for the printing of chapbooks 聳 cheaply
produced stories for children. The saying, "Red sky at night,
shepherd's delight," was popularised in a Banbury chapbook.
There are several versions of the famous Banbury
Cross nursery rhyme. One goes:
Ride
a cock horse to Banbury Cross
To see an old woman get up on a horse
A ring on her finger, a bonnet of straw
The strangest old woman that ever you saw.
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| Alex
Gavin as Charles I |
The Oxford martyrs Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer were burnt on the
order of Queen Mary in the city's Broad Street.
Hitler was intending to use Oxford as his capital if he conquered
England which is one of the reasons it was not bombed.
Oxford was the country's capital city during the Civil War when
Charles 1 held his court here.
Oxfordshire is home to the Rollright
Stones, a 4,500 year old Neolithic stone circle and burial
chamber
The Ridgeway is the considered to be the oldest road in Europe -
5,000 years old.
The
White Horse of Uffington is thought to be the oldest hill
figure in Britain. It is 374 feet long and thought to date back
12,000 years, to the late Bronze Age.
Abingdon is claimed to be the oldest-continuously occupied settlement
in Britain. It's not the oldest town, because it hasn't always been
a town.
Tooley's Boatyard
in Banbury has the oldest working dry-dock in the country, dating
back more than 200 years. Writer Tom Rolt had a boat restored there
before setting off on a voyage that led to the revival of England's
canal system.
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| John
Thaw played Inspector Morse |
Oxford is popular with crime writers with books such as Oxford Blood,
Coffin in Oxford, Oxford Exit and Death of A Don.
Inspector Morse writer Colin Dexter has calculated that he killed
off 81 Oxonians including three heads of colleges in his crime novels.
Fictitious Oxford colleges include Jordan College (Philip Pullman),
Wolsey College (Inspector Morse), Lazarus (Trollope), Biblioll,
Episcopus and Simon Magus.
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