Morse's Town

As long time fans of Inspector Morse, we were pleased to take a day trip to Oxford. On Tuesday we took our rental car and drove down the A44 to the first Park & Ride on the edge of the city. It is strongly recommended by all concerned, as well as those who have driven in, to take the P&R rather than venture in and try to find a parking spot. It worked very well for us.

We were dropped off very close to the theatre which we would attend in the evening. We went in to pick up the tickets we had booked online. The Randolph Hotel, the bar of which is a favorite of Morse in the novels, was just on the corned by the theatre so we whipped in to book a table for their pretheatre menu. (I'm sure Morse would hate that last sentence) They even let me in with my shorts.

The first stop was the Bodleian Library. We decided to take a guided tour and were pleased we did. The Library, which is part of the university, is shaped like a key. You enter from the street at the top of the key and the middle is a large open quadrangle surrounded by rooms marked with the old titles such as, "Natural Philosophie". The part of the key that goes into the lock is the Divinity School where students used to be given their oral exams under the eye of the Dean as well as members of the community. The Community saw it as entertainment and when they began to hurl scoffs at the students during the exams the University shut the public gallery down. We saw the ancient collection which is still in use, and the court room where students used to be tried for breaching the school code. One student was fined 10 shillings for walking in the country with a town girl. Oscar Wilde was tried for his lifestyle and sent down.

We then had lunch in the Eagle and Child pub where CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien met regularly to discuss their work. Then we did the Morse Walk visiting locations and pubs that featured in the novels and TV shows. After picking up a treat at a bakery, we did the Brideshead Revisited walk and saw where Evelyn Waugh's characters were set. We peeked into as many of the colleges as we could. Many were closed as exams are soon on.

At 6:30 we had a really wonderful dinner in The Randolph. It is so packed with olde world charm. The play, starring Tom Conti who we both like, was a light fun show followed by a Q&A by the cast. We caught our bus back to the P&R and were home before midnight. It was a great day.