Literature, Books, Libraries and Museums
Visit Oxford’s Libraries and Museums and Discover the Literary legacies of Oxford
Oxford’s Literary heritage is vast. Discover some of it’s legends and the past with a literary tour.
GLAM is an acronym for Oxford’s galleries, libraries, archives, and museums. Many of these are open to the public or can be visited by special arrangement. Let Oxford History Tours make the plan and guide you there.
Included are the Botanic Gardens and the completely unique Pitt River’s Museum. The Ashmolean Museum, and more intimate version of the British Museum, has an impressive collection of Pre-Raphaelite and Impressionist artworks.
It is possible to visit the Bodleian Library at various levels. The History of science Museum has extraordinary astrological tools once core to the research of the Colleges and the University Museum is housed in a building as fascinating as its story and as its collection.
GLAM - Take a tour of Oxford’s Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums
-
Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum has been described as a cross between London’s British Museum and National Gallery. It is the University’s Art and Archaeology department
But did you know that around the corner is it’s original building,
The first museum to open to the public in 1683, still welcoming the public. Today it is the History of Science museum.
Within lies one of Oxford’s best kept secrets, a treasure trove of fascinating objects, reflecting the scientific endeavour of human beings through the ages right across the globe.
On this tour well take a look at some of the most interesting objects in each museum.
Your will will discover some of the museum’s most loved objects. Ashmolean highlights include the robes worn by Lawrence of Arabia, a jewel owned by King Alfred and a charming camel from China.
In the science museum you will marvel at the oldest working gear mechanism in the
world, see how penicillin was manufactured and Einstein’s famous blackboard…which includes a mistake!
-
From secret agents to Peter Pan, romantic poetry to science fiction - Oxford has inspired a hugely diverse range of literature both old and new, as well as numerous TV producers and movie makers.
Walk down Wordsworth’s Golden Street; seeing the place where Thomas Hardy's 'Jude the Obscure' finally "awoke from his dream” and realised the colleges with their quads, chapels and libraries were not for him.
See the college which expelled Percy Shelley for ’contumaciousness’ and salute the pub where C.S. Lewis, Tolkein and their circle of friends spent many an evening over a congenial pint.
Included on the tour will be a visit to at least one college with interesting literary associations, and a glimpse inside part of the old library, a building which goes back nearly 600 years.
This tour appeals to all lovers of literature - and discover why Oxford is one of Britain’s most enchanting destinations, the city of dreaming spires.
-
“It doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat. " – so long as I get somewhere," Alice added ... "Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."
Alice's Oxford in the footsteps of the city's most famous children’s author, Lewis Carroll. Begins at the Town Hall, where Alice memorabilia are on display.
The route passes Christ Church, where Carroll taught and lived all his adult life and where the inspiration for his story, Alice Liddell, was the daughter of the Dean.
After passing some of the city’s finest collegiate architecture, the walk will then explore some less visited, quieter parts of the city, via the resting place of two Hatters, through University Parks (Pleasure and Delight guaranteed! And a minute of cricket) – and the ‘loveliest building of the plain’
With reference to some of Oxford’s other renowned writers of fantasy fiction, the walk continues to the Oxford University Press building in Jericho, where the first edition of Alice’s Adventures was printed in June 1865, and finished at the remarkable and relevant St Barnabas Church in Jericho.
