Oxford
Thirty-nine colleges, and every one of them sells its own ticket
- When to go
- September 16° · 12 rainy days
- Per day
- €€€€price 4 of 5
- How many days
- 1days
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- Nearest airport
- 63 km Heathrow · 63 km Luton
- Right now
Oxford University has no campus. It has thirty-nine colleges and four permanent private halls, and each is a separate institution with its own gate, its own hours and its own ticket. There is no ticket for 'the university' — you pick two or three colleges and look at the rest from the street.
The gap in price between colleges is wide. Outside term Christ Church charges €29 on a weekday and more at the weekend; tickets for the following week are released on Fridays at about ten in the morning. Trinity College is €8.20, but closes in the middle of the day and changes its hours for private events, so it asks you to ring the porters' lodge before you come.
The calendar changes the plan. Trinity term runs from late April into the second half of June and it's exam season. In term Trinity College shuts from 12 to 2, in the vacation only from 12 to 1; Christ Church is cheaper in the autumn term than in summer, but warns that some areas may be closed then. The university museums don't depend on term, so a day in June is built around them, with a college added if it's open.
What to see in Oxford
Christ Church
The only college whose chapel is also the diocese's cathedral; the ticket covers the cathedral and a multimedia guide in twelve languages. The Great Hall was recreated in a studio for the Harry Potter films, so part of the crowd is not here for the architecture. Christ Church Meadow, between the college and the river, is free to walk.
The Bodleian and the Radcliffe Camera
Britain's second-largest library, after the British Library. The Divinity School, a fifteenth-century Gothic examination hall, is self-guided for €3.50 and fifteen minutes. The medieval Duke Humfrey's reading room is on the one-hour tour, from €20.
The Ashmolean
Britain's first public museum, opened on 24 May 1683. Free, daily 10 to 5, last entry 4.45. Four floors run from Egyptian mummies to Uccello and Titian.
Natural History and the Pitt Rivers
A neo-Gothic hall of iron columns under a glass roof, with dinosaurs underneath. It is the only way into the Pitt Rivers, an ethnographic collection arranged by type of object rather than by country. Both are free; Natural History is open daily 10–5, the Pitt Rivers only from noon on Mondays.
Punting from Magdalen Bridge
A flat boat and a pole for up to five people, €41 an hour for the whole boat, 1 February to 30 November, 9.30 until 9pm or an hour before sunset. On weekdays you just turn up; weekends are booked ahead.
Getting here
Trains from Paddington run several times an hour and take about an hour. The Oxford Tube coach is cheaper, from €17 one way. If you come by car, leave it at one of the park-and-ride sites on the edge of town.
Two things you probably did not know
Teaching has gone on at Oxford since 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world. Cambridge began in 1209 when a group of Oxford scholars fled the town after a clash with locals.
The Oxford English Dictionary took seventy years to make, and one of its most prolific contributors was William Chester Minor, who sent in quotations from the asylum where he was held for murder.
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