Traditions and Trivia

Oxford and Oxfordshire enjoy their ancient traditions and legends. They even invent new ones.
Here are a just few:

Oxford - Did you know?

• In Oxford colleges the 'dons' or professors eat in the college dining halls at a long table 6 inches above the students. This is called 'High Table'.
  
  
• The real Alice in Wonderland lived at Christ Church where her father was Dean. Lewis Carroll was the pseudonym for Charles Dodgson, a Mathematics don and keen amateur photographer. His camera is in the Museum of History of Science.
  
  
• The Great Tudor Hall of Christ Church was the inspiration for Hogwarts Hall.
  
  
• It's said that Magdalen College's deer were reclassified as 'vegetables' (on the grounds they are herbivores) during WWII to avoid appropriation by the Ministry of Food. But there is no evidence for this. Well, there wouldn't be, would there?
  
  
• King Richard the Lionheart and his brother, King John, (of bad repute) were born in Beaumont Palace, where Beaumont Street now runs.
  
  
• The world's first public museum ('museum' = 'home of the Muses') is Oxford's Ashmolean Museum.
  
  

• Sir Roger Bannister, the first man to run a mile in under 4 minutes, achieved this record at the University's Iffley Road running track in 1954.
  
  
• Oxford's Charter (1191) was the first so granted in England by the Crown. Now in the Museum of Oxford, its seal shows the punning emblem of an ox crossing a ford, the emblem for the city to this day.
  
  
• Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who invented the World Wide Web while at CERN, is an alumnus of the Queen's College. He took a First Class degree in Physics.
  
  
• The Golden Cross (1193, restored 1988) is a former coaching inn, and one of Oxford's oldest hostelries. Shakespeare's plays are said to have been performed in its courtyard.
  
  
• What's the oldest building in Oxford? St George's Tower, (part of Oxford Castle) or St Michael at the North Gate church tower (formerly part of the city's fortifications)? Both are part-Saxon and pre-date the University. Climb them and decide for yourself.
  
  
• Bob Hawke, former Prime Minister of Australia, still holds the record for drinking a yard of ale at the Turf Tavern.
  
  

• The only graffiti permitted on Oxford college walls celebrate victories over rival colleges' boat crews. Some must have required scaffolding for their execution. Look out for them.
  
  
• May 1 is Oxford's big celebration of spring. The choir sings in Latin inside Magdalen Tower at 6.00am, followed by madrigals and morris dancing with pubs offering breakfast, both liquid and solid. It's all over by 8.00am.
  
  
• St Giles Fair dates back to 1624. The whole of St Giles (the street is owned by St John's College) is closed to traffic for 2 days in early September while the fairground takes over.
  
  
• The boundaries of Oxford city parishes are marked with a plaque (you can see one in Marks and Spencer) or with a chalked cross on the wall or pavement. Look out for them.
  

Oxfordshire - Did you know?

• King Edward the Confessor was born at Islip.
  
  
• King Alfred the Great, credited with many achievements, educational, legal and military, was born at Wantage.
  
  
• Aunt Sally is a popular Oxfordshire pub game involving throwing sticks at a wooden skittle. Have a go while you're here. It may look easy but..........
  
  

• Important events are celebrated in Abingdon by the Lord Mayor throwing buns from the roof top of the town's elegant County Hall Museum.
  
  
• The former Poet Laureate, Sir John Betjeman's wife, ran King Alfred's Kitchen, a tea shop in Wantage.
  
  
• The Ridgeway, used for centuries by drovers taking cattle to market, is one of the oldest routes in England. It is said that King Alfred led his army along the Ridgeway to victory over the Danes at the Battle of Ashdown in 871AD.
  
  
• The Uffington White Horse is the only genuine prehistoric White Horse in Britain. Of course, it may be a wyvern.......
  
  
• The World Pooh Sticks championships are held annually at Day's Lock, Little Wittenham, near Dorchester on Thames in aid of RNLI.
  
  
• Abingdon was formerly a far more important town than Oxford. The immense size of Abingdon Abbey, commemorated in the Abbey Grounds, is hard to imagine.
  
  
• The delightful Theatre at Chipping Norton is a former Salvation Army citadel.
  
  

• If, travelling the Ridgeway, your horse needs new shoes, legend dictates that you should simply tether the animal overnight by Wayland's Smithy, leaving a silver sixpence by way of recompense. When you return next morning your horse will be shod. However, you might find that when you return your horse isn't there at all.......
  
  
• There are real fossilised dinosaur footprints on display in the Jurassic walled garden at the Oxfordshire Museum at Woodstock. They were discovered at nearby Ardley Quarry.
  
  
• A Fritillary Festival is held annually in Ducklington, celebrating this mysterious flower, once almost picked to extinction when it was shipped by train for sale in London.
  
  
• Morris dancing survived in Oxfordshire when it died out in most other parts of the country. The sides with the longest continuous tradition and their own traditional dances include Headington Quarry, Abingdon, and Bampton.
  
  
• Local specialities include dough cake and lardy cake. Before the manufacture of cheap margarine and sugar, 'cakes' were based on bread dough with a bit of added dried fruit and sugar and some rosemary-scented lard from the family pig. Moreish.
  
  
• Many Oxfordshire towns and villages have Farmers' Markets where you can stock up on local produce - useful if you are self-catering. They provide excellent gifts and souvenirs to take home.
  
  

• Blenheim Palace is Britain's only private palace. The others belong to the Crown or the Church. It's probably Britain's favourite palace.
  
  
• 'Cotswold Lions' are a breed of sheep, much prized for the quality of their fleece. The wealth created by the woollen industry is enshrined in the 'Wool churches' whose fine architecture, stonework and table-topped tombs are typical of the Cotswolds.
  
  
• Witney produced woollen blankets specifically for trading in North America and Canada; the number and colour of stripes on each blanket defined the size and quality. The red cloth for Canadian Mounties' uniforms was woven at Chipping Norton Mill whose remarkable chimney remains a local landmark.
  
  
• The residents of Ock Street, Abingdon, elect their own Mayor every year. The Mock Mayor is then carried round the town on a decorated chair by the local morris side. An occasion for much morris dancing and jollification.
  
  
• The Oxford Bus Museum is in Long Hanborough - not Oxford! Still worth a visit, though.
  
  
• The Whispering Knights are a group of 5 upright stones believed to be part of a Neolithic burial mound near the Rollright Stones stone circle.