Father Thames

by Walter Higgins

But these are only two of the colleges. At every turn some other architectural beauty, some dream in stone, discloses itself, for the colleges are dotted about all over the centre of the town, and at every other corner there is some spot of great interest. To describe them all briefly would more than fill the pages of this book.

Nor are colleges the only delightful buildings in this city of beautiful places. There is the famous Sheldonian Theatre, built from Wren’s plans: this follows the model of an ancient Roman theatre, and will seat four thousand people. There is the celebrated Bodleian Library, founded as early as 1602, and containing a rich collection of rare Eastern and Greek and Latin books and manuscripts. The Bodleian, like the British Museum, has the right to call for a copy of every book published in the United Kingdom.

But Oxford has known a life other than that of a university town: it has been in its time a military centre of some importance. As we sweep round northwards in the train from London, just before we enter the city, the great square tower of the Castle stands out, one of the most prominent objects in the town. And it is really one of the most interesting too, though few find time to visit it. So absorbed are most folk in the churches and chapels, the libraries and college halls, with their exquisite carvings and ornamentations and their lovely gardens, that they forget this frowning relic of the Conqueror’s day—the most lasting monument of the city. Built in 1071 by Robert d’Oilly, boon companion of the Conqueror, it has stood the test of time through all these centuries. Like Windsor, that other Norman stronghold, it has seen little enough of actual fighting: in Oxford the pen has nearly always been mightier than the sword.

One brief episode of war it had when Stephen shut up his cousin, the Empress Maud, within its walls in the autumn of 1142. Then Oxford tasted siege if not assault, and the castle was locked up for three months. However, the River and the weather contrived to save Maud, for, just as provisions were giving out and surrender was only a matter of days, there came a severe frost and the waters were thickly covered. Then it was that the Empress with but two or three white-clad attendants escaped across the ice and made her way to Wallingford, while her opponents closely guarded the roads and bridges.

Nor in our consideration of the glories of this beloved old city must we forget the River—for no one in the place forgets it. Perhaps we should not speak of the River, for Oxford is the fortunate possessor of two, standing as it does in the fork created by the flowing together of the Thames and the Cherwell. The Thames, as we have already seen, flows thither from the west, while the Cherwell makes its way southwards from Edgehill; and, though we are accustomed to think of the Thames as the main stream, the geologists, whose business it is to make a close study of the earth’s surface, tell us that the Cherwell is in reality the more important of the two; that down its valley in the far-away past flowed a great river which with the Kennet was the ancestor of the present-day River; that the tributary Thames has grown so much that it has been able to capture and take over as its own the valley of the Cherwell from Oxford onwards to Reading. But that, of course, is a story of the very dim past, long before the days of history.

The Cherwell is a very pretty little stream, shaded by overhanging willows and other trees, so that it is usually the haunt of pleasure, the place where the undergraduate takes his own or somebody else’s sister for an afternoon’s excursion, or where he makes his craft fast in the shade in order that he may enjoy an afternoon’s quiet reading. A walk through the meadows on its banks is, indeed, something very pleasant, with the stream on one side of us and that most beautiful of colleges, Magdalen, on the other. Here as we proceed down the famous avenue of pollard willows, winding between two branches of the stream, we can hear almost continuously the singing of innumerable birds, for the Oxford gardens and meadows form a veritable sanctuary in which live feathered friends of every sort.

But the Thames (or Isis as it is invariably called in Oxford) is the place of more serious matters. To the rowing man “the River” means only one thing, and really only a very short space of that: he is accustomed to speak of “the River” and “the Cher,” and with him the latter does not count at all. Everybody in the valley, certainly every boy and girl, knows about the Oxford and Cambridge Boatrace, which is held annually on the Thames at Putney, when two selected crews from the rival universities race each other over a distance. Probably quite a few of us have witnessed the exciting event. Well, “Boatrace Day” is merely the final act of a long drama, nearly all the scenes of which take place, not at Putney, but on the river at the University town. For the Varsity “eight” are only chosen from the various college crews after long months of arduous preparation. Each of the colleges has its own rowing club, and the college crews race against each other in the summer term. A fine sight it is, too, to see the long thin “eights” passing at a great pace in front of the beautifully decorated “Barges,” which are to the college rowing clubs what pavilions are to the cricket clubs.

These “barges,” which stretch along the river front for some considerable distance, resemble nothing so much as the magnificent houseboats which we see lower down the river at Henley, Maidenhead, Molesey, etc. They are fitted up inside with bathrooms and dressing-rooms, and comfortable lounges and reading-rooms, while their flat tops are utilised by the rowing men for sitting at ease and chatting to their friends. Each college has its own “barge,” and it is a point of honour to make it and keep it a credit to the college. The long string of “barges” form a very beautiful picture, particularly when the river is quiet, and the finely decorated vessels with their background of green trees are reflected in the smooth waters.

May is the great time for the River at Oxford, for then are held the races of the senior “crews” or “eights.” Then for a week the place, both shore and stream, is gay with pretty dresses and merry laughter, for mothers and sisters, cousins and friends, flock to Oxford in their hundreds to see the fun. But to the rowing man it is a time of hard work—with more in prospect if he is lucky; for, just as the “eights” of this week have been selected from the crews of the February “torpids” or junior races, so from those doing well during “eights week” may be chosen the University crew—the “blues.”

Many have been the voices which have sung the praises of the “city of spires,” for many have loved her. None more so perhaps than Matthew Arnold, whose poem “The Scholar Gypsy”—the tale of a University lad who was by poverty forced to leave his studies and join himself to a company of vagabond gipsies, from whom he gained a knowledge beyond that of the scholars—is so well known. Says Arnold of the city: “And yet as she lies, spreading her gardens to the moonlight, and whispering from her towers the last enchantments of the Middle Ages, who will deny that Oxford, by her ineffable charm, keeps ever calling us nearer to the true goal of all of us, to the ideal, to perfection—to beauty, in a word?”