DISCOVER Oxford
The old stones, fathomless libraries and lovely surroundings of Oxford are a proven superfood for fantasies. What might a weekend do for you?
MATTHEW ARNOLD FIRST dubbed Oxford ‘that sweet city with her dreaming spires’ in his 1865 poem Thyrsis. It’s a description that seems so apt not just because of its architecture, but for the rich fantasies it has inspired among some of its most famous residents – the magical worlds of Alice’s Wonderland, Lewis’ Narnia and Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Chock-a-block with secret worlds enclosed in honey-stoned quadrangles, flush with pretty waterways, cleft by cobbled streets and alleys to disappear down, bordered by meadows and ancient woods, and full of lovely places to drink and to read for hours, Oxford is a hothouse for the imagination. And what strange places big brains go at idle.
Charles Dodgson (1832-1889) was a mathematician who spent his whole adult life at the palatial Christ Church college. A brilliant mind, but one irresistibly prone to diversions, he walked avidly and daydreamed prolifically. After a new Dean and his family moved into the college he had the perfect catalyst for his creativity – a rapt audience of children. It was during rowing expeditions along the still youthful Thames (here going by the name Isis) that Dodgson spellbound the three sisters Lorina, Edith, and Alice Liddell with an extemporised tale of white rabbits, shrinking potion and treacle wells.
After their encouragement to write his thrillingly loopy story down, and a year and a half of further polishing, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (published under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll) was born. The names of those in the boat provided several characters in the book. Apart from Alice herself, the Lory refers to Lorina, the Eaglet to Edith and Dodgson himself was the Dodo – perhaps in self-deprecating reference to his stammer. You can walk the course of what turned out to be the last boat trip the girls and Dodgson ever took, on a lovely station-to-station walk along the river fro
