Map 164: Imagination and stories

23-24 January 2024

The Story Museum seemed to be the best place to begin exploring literary figures, imagination and story telling in Oxford. Although the museum is aimed mainly at families with children and at school groups, the traditional stories and fables in the Whispering Wood were all superb and well-told. I also enjoyed the childhood memories brought to life and the artefacts in the enchanted library. As I was concentrating on stories associated with Oxford, the “big three” were naturally Alice (Lewis Carroll), Narnia (C.S. Lewis) and Middle Earth (J.R.R. Tolkien).

I have to confess that walking through the wardrobe into a snowy Narnia complete with the lamp post was a highlight.

I resisted the temptation to sit down at C.S. Lewis’s old desk, complete with ink stain, to write my own story.

Although not staying with the Oxford connection, I was delighted to see the display about the Puffin Club including a copy of Puffin Post, a membership card (private and confidential) and a club badge. I remember all these and still have many of the Puffin Paperbacks I owned as a child.

I was fortunate to bypass the queues and gain free admission to Christ Church by showing my “Oxford Alumni Card”. Most visitors are only permitted with a multi-media guide ticket or on a conducted tour. These would both be expensive options for a short visit made primarily to go to the Great Hall to look at the Alice window (fifth on the left) and the brass firedogs with elongated necks, a possible inspiration for the moment in the novel when Alice’s own neck stretches ‘like a stalk’ after eating a piece of the Caterpillar’s mushroom.

I strolled down to Folly Bridge. On 4 July 1862, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) set off on a boating trip with the three daughters of the Dean of Christ Church (including Alice Liddell) and first told the story of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I’m sure the river levels would have been lower on that summer day. I had envisaged the possibility of following the riverside path up to The Perch at Binsey (one of the first places where Lewis Carroll gave Alice readings) and the Treacle Well (featuring in the story told by the dormouse at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party) then continuing to The Trout before returning through Port Meadow. However the path would certainly be flooded in many parts at present.

Instead I returned past Christ Church and the Alice Shop opposite. This shop is now filled with Alice memorabilia. However in Alice’s childhood it was a grocery and sweet shop. In Through the Looking Glass, Alice finds herself in a dark little shop run by an old sheep. In reality the old sheep probably represents the then owner of the shop, an elderly lady with a bleating voice.

I walked up to the Museum of Oxford in the town hall (free admission) which features a display of some “real Alice” artefacts including some of her albums of collections of family crests which appeared on letterheads, envelopes and note paper. The silver scissors set was possibly used for cutting out crests. The display also includes her First World War Red Cross medal, visiting card case and a pamphlet “Eight or Nine Wise Words about Letter-Writing” by Lewis Carroll.

I presented my Oxford Alumni Card at Merton College lodge, in the hope of visiting the stone table in the gardens, where it is said that J.R.R. Tolkien (Oxford’s Merton Professor of English language and literature) would sit and write. It is possibly the setting he had in mind for Elrond’s conference where four hobbits, two men, a wizard, an elf and a dwarf pledge their faith to a fellowship of the One Ring. It is also rumoured to be the inspiration for the stone table described in “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” by C.S Lewis. I did get free admission to the college but unfortunately I could only view the table from a distance because it’s located in the private part of the college. I will have to return as a guest of a Merton alumnus to see the table at close range.

C.S. Lewis studied at University College and went on to become Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Magdalen College. He was a friend and colleague of Tolkien and they were both members of an informal literary group, The Inklings, that met in the 1930s and 1940s. One of their meeting places was The Eagle and Child in St Giles. The building and pub sign are still in place but the pub is sadly closed down at present.

I made my way up to the High and crossed over into St Mary’s Passage. Here there is a door with a lion’s head on it – possibly the inspiration for Aslan. The adornments on each side are fauns bearing a striking similarity to Mr Tumnus. There is even a lamp post nearby which looks just like the one that the children spot as they enter the snowy forest in Narnia through the wardrobe. I’m sure I read somewhere that Tolkien told Lewis that no escapist fantasy would include a lamp post….. – clearly Lewis was up for the challenge.

From the famous door, there’s an interesting partial view of the Radcliffe camera; the Radcliffe Camera may have been the inspiration for Tolkien’s Sauron’s Temple.

My wandering took me past the gateway into Hertford College, but a notice at the Old Buildings entrance stated the college was closed except to current members. This is my old college and I probably should have popped into the lodge to say “hello” but was dissuaded by the notice. I should just note that there is a Swift Room in the College – named in honour of Jonathan Swift who was a matriculated member of Oxford University at Hart Hall (a forerunner of Hertford College) and notably the author of Gulliver’s Travels. Evelyn Waugh, one of the leading satirical novelists of the twentieth century, is also an alumnus of Hertford College; his works include Brideshead Revisited and much location filming for the Oxford scenes in the TV adaptation featured Hertford College including the picturesque bridge.

I reached the Weston Library at the end of Broad Street. At the moment the special exhibition with free entry is “Chaucer Here and Now”, definitely something resonating with the theme of my adventure in Oxford looking at literary figures with an emphasis on imagination and story-telling. Drawing on material ranging from the earliest known manuscript of The Canterbury Tales to contemporary adaptions in theatre and film, this exhibition explores the many creative responses to Chaucer. The Miller’s tale is even set in Oxford. The exhibition has been curated by Professor Marion Turner who is the current JRR Tolkien Professor of English Literature and Language at the University of Oxford. I don’t remember ever looking at the works of Chaucer previously. I was amazed by some of the themes developed in his writing that seem just as or even more relevant nowadays than in the late fourteenth century – relationships, sexuality, racial issues, feminist issues, misogyny etc..

Given my interest in maps and that my entire project is an “adventure” based on each sheet of the Ordnance Survey 1:50,000 map series, I couldn’t ignore the Sheldon Tapestry Map of Oxfordshire and surrounding counties. It’s a woven wool and silk tapestry measuring 3.5 by 5.5 metres created around 1590 and almost certainly derived from the county maps of Christopher Saxton (1574-79). It hangs in the huge main entrance hall and is not complete but the fragments have been painstakingly restored.  What remains features incredibly detailed illustrations of 16th-century towns and villages, rivers and streams, forests, castles and cathedrals including the dreaming spires of Oxford – a cartographic masterpiece.

My next destination was just across the road at the History of Science Museum. The building is where Tolkien spent two years from Armistice to 1920 as an assistant lexicographer for the Oxford English Dictionary, covering words between “waggle” and “warlock”. Many academics have argued that Tolkien drew the language of his Middle Earth books directly from his etymological research.

The museum is fascinating including a plethora of historic artefacts relating to science. However the relevance to this adventure was to discover that the real Alice’s father (Dean Henry Liddell and from 1870-74 Vice Chancellor of Oxford University) who was the inspiration for the King of Hearts in the Alice story had been one of the two key people campaigning for sanitary reform for Oxford – improved sewage disposal and clean drinking water. His fellow campaigner was Sir Henry Acland, Professor of Medicine and was the inspiration for the white rabbit in the story (apparently he was generally late and always seemed to be rushing around).

I also spotted the box which Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), an enthusiastic gentleman photographer, used to hold the chemicals he needed to prepare the glass plates prior to taking photographs.

By the time I left the museum, it was almost dusk. I was staying the night in a hotel in North Oxford but thought that there might just be enough light to investigate the Holywell Cemetery and see the graves of Kenneth Grahame (author of The Wind in the Willows) and of Charles Williams (an Inkling) and Hugo Dyson (an associate of the Inklings). However the cemetery turned out to be dark and secluded. A large fox was just visible on the path turning through an iron gate. I decided to return the next morning.

I was out early after breakfast, first walking further north to the post box outside 78 Banbury Road. It’s unusual as it has no royal cipher and lacks the words “Post Office” – nowadays is known as the ‘anonymous’ type. It stands outside what was the home from 1885 to 1915 of Sir James Murray, editor of the first Oxford English Dictionary.

I turned down a side road and turned again to walk parallel to Banbury Road along Northmoor Road. These leafy roads with large houses were in a popular area for academics with families when they could afford the prices. However, 20 Northmoor Road, where Tolkien lived from 1930 to 1937, was shrouded in scaffolding encased with polythene. I note that it sold for over £3.65 million in 2021 and the average house price in the area is £4.8 million!

I enjoyed walking through the University Parks and continued along St Cross Road to the Holywell Cemetery. A helpful map in the middle of the grave yard helped me locate the graves of interest. Kenneth Grahame was sent to work in a bank on grounds of cost despite wanting to study at Oxford University. Like many stories, The Wind in the Willows developed from stories Kenneth made up to tell his son, Alastair. Alastair was transformed into the swaggering Mr Toad and, unlike his father, did study at Oxford but killed himself on a railway track in 1920 at the age of 19. He was buried in Holywell cemetery and his father was buried by his side in the same grave in 1932.

I strolled to Magdalen College where I arrived soon after the advertised 10am opening time for visitors. This college is where C.S. Lewis was Fellow and Tutor in English Literature. My Oxford Alumni card did its magic again and I was admitted to look round free of charge. I visited the chapel with imposing black and white stained glass where C.S. Lewis attended weekday services following his conversion to Christianity in 1931. I wandered round the cloisters looking at the animals carved on the pillars, appearing poised and ready for Aslan (the lion in Narnia) to breathe life into them.

I climbed the stairs to the Hall, noting the presence of modern photographic portraits, including women, as well as the old traditional painted portraits. It looks as if they took a leaf out of Hertford’s book where photographic portraits of recent alumni adorned the hall several years ago.

I walked out of the cloisters to see the New Building (dating from 1735). This was where Lewis had his suite of rooms with the sitting room window looking over the Deer Park.

Crossing the Holywell Mill Stream over a bridge, I reached Addison’s Walk, next to the water meadows, a favourite walking place for Lewis and his friends.

Eventually I left Magdalen College and walked down Rose Walk to catch sight of the University Botanic Gardens, although I decided not to visit as I needed the rest of my time in Oxford to visit the interconnecting Natural History and Pitt Rivers Museums (both free admission).

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) was a regular visitor to the museum, sometimes accompanied by Alice Liddell and her two sisters. Specimens he saw there inspired some of the characters in Alice in Wonderland. The most famous was the dodo. The stuffed dodo itself decayed and is no longer on display although there are many other stuffed animals and birds from all parts of the World.

However there is a model dodo skeleton on display as well as Jan Savery’s painting of a dodo. In fact the dodo was the character chosen to represent the author himself who had a lifelong stammer (Do..do..dodgson).

I could have spent my entire two days in Oxford at these two museums – there was so much to see.

Certainly there are plenty of places to explore with literary associations in and around Oxford. Many more adventures are waiting to happen…….