Colleges are my Cup of Tea

Over this weekend, two of my roommates were away to Paris, while Austin and I got the flat all to ourselves, again. (If you want to know what all we did the first time we had a weekend alone, read my previous post, Holy Introverts, Batman!) I am not sure how we continue to get weekends alone, but they are always fun and we always do fun exciting things, so I'm not complaining.

This weekend we decided to revisit the Pitt Rivers Museum as well as look at some more local colleges that belong to the University of Oxford. (I will post separately about going back to the Pitt River Museum later.)


The colleges of Oxford University are placed all throughout the city center of Oxford. You will literally be walking down a back alley away and there will be a college's main entrance. And the entrance always has a giant wooden door from some thousands of years ago, but will only have a, comparatively small, normal sized door open that has been made in the larger door. And the walls of the colleges are always ancient looking and made with some gothic or georgian designs. And because of this, the city has this strange mix of old and new, as new businesses have moved in to spots between colleges but the colleges have stayed about the same. This and that you cannot go five minutes without seeing a college, unless you are purposefully avoiding them, I suppose, has made me very interesting in the different colleges. And this interest has somehow manifest into a need to visit the different colleges.

At the beginning of our stay here, my roommates and I went to a bunch of colleges that belong to Oxford University during an open house type day, where admission to all the colleges was free (as a lot of them charge an entrance fee). We went to some of the more well known and closer to our flat ones: All Souls College, Queen's College, and Magdalen College. We wanted to go to Christ's Church (pictured above), the college that the Great Hall in Harry Potter was based on, but the hours of availability did no work well so we missed that one.

We started by visiting Queen's College, which had a very beautiful garden and a lovely chapel. (For some reason whenever you visit a college in Oxford they always want you to see the chapel. Maybe some people pick where they want to go based on what they look like?)

The chapel had a golden eagle for someone to stand at and deliver a sermon from, as well as stained glass windows lining the walls. (I love stained glass, so I was very excited, even though most chapel's have stained glass. Although, ironically, the church I attended at home does not.) The ceiling was domed and very high, as well as there was decorations all around the walls, and the chairs were made of a carved dark wood.

All Souls College is one of the graduate schools that is part of Oxford University, and is located by the Radcliffe Camera and Bodleian Library. Walking in, they had a band playing on their main lawn, which is really the only lawn I think that they have. It was a big green square in the middle of a big square made by the college. I felt a bit trapped, but also like dancing (because of the music).

The chapel at All Souls also had the gold eagle stand, and stained glass. But the entire back wall was covered in immaculately detailed statues of Saints. It was breath-taking. Even though the main lawn was not much to look at, the chapel was well worth visiting. And the band, that was cool too.

The third and final college that we visited that day was Magdalen College, which is actually pronounced 'Mod-a-lynn'. The chapel was nice, and had black and white stained glass as well as colored ones, which I found interesting. And they had the golden eagle, which I found really confusing as I kept seeing it in chapels. England usually shows itself as a 'British Lion' and an eagle would be more American, I think. My Catholic friend did not having any answers for me either. Eventually (two seconds ago), I looked it up and it turns out that they are called 'Lecterns' and are usually eagle shaped to represent John the Apostle.

And like with All Souls, what they lacked in a fancy chapel they made up for in an amazing garden and gigantic grounds. We walked all around the deer park (yes, they keep deer here) and it literally took so long that we did not have time o visit other colleges we had planned on going to, and our legs were killing us. It was really beautiful though, and there was a small creak that ran next to the walking path where some people were punting. And there were lots of cute benches to rest on as well as another garden even further back into the college, that we sadly skipped.

So, after reading that, maybe you can better understand why I wanted to visit lots of colleges this weekend, or maybe not. Either way you are going to have to read about it.

At first we were worried that there may not be many colleges that did not charge an entrance fee for us to visit, but it turned out that there were a lot. We made up a small list of all the ones near the main road and what times they were open to visitors and double checked a map to make sure we knew where we were going. We assumed they were probably the smaller colleges, but that's better than nothing.

The quest started us out at St. Edmund College. We had passed by it a few times on the way to places when we wanted to take some back roads, but I had never thought about trying to enter it. As we walked up and peered inside the traditional giant wooden door, with a normal door cut out of it, we saw a sign that said 'Closed to Visitors', so we backed off and tried to get a view inside over the wall. The wall, which is about seven or eight feet high, so of course we saw nothing. There was however a gate a bit up the street where you could see into a small cemetery on the grounds. Some students walked pasted it on their way to class, and I became really upset we were not able to enter.

It may sound creepy, but I love graveyards. Not because I love writing in diaries and meeting vampires there, or I that I have some strange obsession with death, I just like the history. Seeing all the places where I know for a fact people from centuries ago have been and lived, is really exciting to me. Also, I do think the hushed, sacred feeling that people get whenever you visit one is interesting too, but you can get that inside a church as well.

Next we walked up towards the Pitt Rivers Museum to find Keble College. It was a bit far away, but ended up being worth it. (Especially since it was only one of two colleges that we actually got to walk around.)

The buildings were styled with Neo-Gothic architecture  where the base of the structures were a dark brick, but there were designs made into the structure with a lighter cream stone. As in the entire design with done in the buildings face with varied colored stones and not painted on as most designs on colleges seem to be. And the designs varied from checkered, to stripe, to chevron, and dashed. But it all looked brillant together.

It was also a lovely day out, so Austin and I sat on a near by bench and discussed how much we loved this college and wanted to study here.

The main quod that we were at was still a large square, but there were cute small gardens all in front of the buildings and a large plus-sign walkway that went through the large square patch of grass in the middle, for ease of walking. The entire scene was just very picturesque and there was even a cute iron gate that led in to what it labeled as the 'gardens', although we were not permitted to go there.

There were also trees around the quad, but not too many to where it felt cramped. As someone who would not even apply to colleges without enough trees (I have strange tastes, what can I say), I can tell you this place had just the right amount of foliage. And the birds were singing all around, students were chatting politely while walking to class, the wind blew lightly allowing the flower's aromas to settle round the courtyard, and I was in love. Keble College is definitely my favorite Oxford University college to date. I wanted to stay there forever, but we were on a time limit so I did eventually have to say good bye.

As we continued walking we also were turned away from Haris Manchester College, Hertford College, and Jesus College (which actually we found by accident, since you actually have to pay to visit). We also walked past Trinity College, which I personally did not realize existed. And I am not quite sure why all of the colleges were closed to the public, since when looked up what times they were open online before coming. Perhaps it is because it was a weekday or because it is close to exams, but either way it was a tad disappointing.

The crowning jewel of this trip was suppose to be Exeter College, which I had determined I would walk into even if it had a 'Closed' sign. This is because Exeter is the college that J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, went to school. And I have gone to the Harry Potter Studios as well as the Doctor Who Experience, and it would not be right by my man JRR to not visit his school.

So as we walked over, I prepped myself mentally to just keep walking no matter what the sign said, and this worked as the sign did say the college was closed to visitors, but there was a woman working at the front of the entrance into the main courtyard. She just looked at me quizzically and I mentally began to panic, 'She knows! She knows! Abort! Abort!'. I literally could not force myself to walk past her, so I just settled for standing n the entrance hall looking into the main courtyard.

It was pretty with gothic style architecture  as most colleges around Oxford have. It was rather small and had dark designs on the walls. There was also some type of large clock on the wall adjacent to me, but that was about all I got. I'm sorry JRR, I tried... I tried...

I am hoping to go back and visit at least Exeter College again, even if I have to walk past security people, because I will be ready this time.

I did get to go into a 'Bonus' college though. St. John's College was not on our list but we walked past it as we were heading to St. Giles Church up the road and just popped in. It was ok, but no where near as nice as Keble College. But hey, a bonus is a bonus.

Besides colleges in Oxford, I have also visited Sarum College (in Salisbury), Cambridge University (in Cambridge), Winchester College (in Winchester), and Trinity College (in Dublin). But I will spare you the descriptons of those as this post is all about Oxford and it's awesome colleges/university.

If you for some reason want to see a list of all the places I have visited around the United Kingdom and European Union, you can by either clicking 'Adventures' on the top of this page, or click this link (which will still take you there): Adventures.

Until next time...

Embrace the Odd,
Caitlin

"Abnormal is so common, it's practically normal." -Cory Doctorow