An Xmas Bauble
Off for the weekend to my favourite English City of Oxford for an excellent lunch at Bistro Blanc and seeing the Ashmolean Museum before it closes for 11 months for rebuilding and reopening in November 2009 with 39 new galleries.
http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/04/day-in-oxford.html
http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/05/oxford-murders.html
Staying over in the Cotswold Lodge Hotel on the Banbury road it gave us an opportunity to dip into Oxford life not just in the centre but in Summertown and Jericho in the run up to Christmas.
These shots of Xmas characters were taken in Cornmarket which is the hub of Oxford. Cornmarket was originally the Oxford street where corn was bought and sold, but increasing traffic caused this trade moved to the covered market in the eighteenth century.
A Pudding
A Red Pillar Box
Morris Dancers
Some would ask where would the world be without Morris Dancers and many more would volunteer rude answers! A morris dance is a form of English folk dance usually accompanied by music. It is based on rhythmic stepping and the execution of choreographed figures by a group of dancers. Implements such as sticks, swords, and handkerchiefs may also be wielded by the dancers. In a small number of dances for one or two men, steps are performed near and across a pair of clay tobacco pipes laid across each other on the floor.
Whilst thought of as uniquely English the name actually refers to a "moorish dance" called morisques in France, moriskentanz in Germany, moreška in Croatia, and moresco, moresca or morisca in Italy and Spain, which eventually became morris dance. In 1492 Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castille succeeded in driving the Moors out of Spain and unifying the country. In celebration of this a pageant known as a Moresca was devised and performed but in England the Catholic origins of the tradition have been edited out!
As mentioned the Corn Trade was moved from the Corn Market to the Covered Market which is still thriving today.
Covered Market
M. Feller, Sons and Daughter.
This is an old established Butcher and Game dealer in the Covered Market and up to Xmas it has a large display of Fowl and Game including Deer and Wild Boar. Many a kid is shocked passing by when they find out what really happened to Bambi!
Falun Gong
Muslim Iman
Oxford is of course the home of the "Oxford Movement" a term which is often used to describe the whole of what might be called the Catholic revival in the Church of England. More properly it refers to the activities and ideas of an initially small group of people in the University of Oxford who argued against the increasing secularisation of the Church of England, and sought to recall it to its heritage of apostolic order, and to the catholic doctrines of the early church fathers. The success of this theological task was so great, one might argue, that it is now difficult to distinguish between those who were given the name Tractarians and the wider Anglo-Catholic wing of the church which built on and developed their ideas. Oxford today is still the home of High Anglicanism and many "tractarians" are on the streets (as is an Oxford tradition) pushing their points of view with pamphlets with patronising titles such as "Santa or Saviour?" or "The Reason for the Season." These followers seem to forget that for roundly 450 years the followers of Jesus of Nazareth were of the impression that he was born in July and it was only when Christians felt secure as the official religion of Rome that they hijacked the good pagan mid-winter feast of Saturnalia which fell on the 25th of December! How good then to see a counterpoint to this evangelism with a Muslim Iman and a member of Falun Gong also engaging with the Oxford public.
Finaly some general views of central Oxford in the run up to Xmas 2008.
Carfax Tower
Climb 99 steps to the top of the tower to get a bird's eye view of Oxford's "Dreaming Spires". In 1818 St Martin's church was rebuilt complete with tower, however towards the end of the 19th century, mounting traffic problems necessitated road widening. The church, apart from it's tower, was demolished in 1896. The tower is all that remains today. On the east facade the church clock is adorned by two "quarter boys", who hit the bells at every "quarter" of the hour.
Cornmarket
Corn Market with "Great Tom"
Christ Church was originally founded by Cardinal Wolsey as Cardinal's College in 1524. The college buildings took over the site of St. Frideswide's Monastery, which was suppressed by Wolsey to fund his college. A former student, Sir Christopher Wren, was commissioned to design a new bell tower in 1682, which houses the bell, Great Tom, from which the tower and the quad get their names. The Dean who supervised this work, John Fell, was an unpopular man inspired the famous verse, 'I do not love thee Doctor Fell, why I don't I cannot tell, but this I know and know full well, I do not love thee Doctor Fell.'
Humid the air! leafless, yet soft as spring,
The tender purple spray on copse and briers!
And that sweet city with her dreaming spires,
She needs not June for beauty's heightening
- Matthew Arnold
from: Thyrsis
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