iSPY Look Out…

Look out in Oxford

Magdalen College will mark your departure from or entry to Oxford City centre as you cross the River Cherwell over Magdalen Bridge. Don’t miss the wonderful collection of carvings on the wall facing the High Street including the head and shoulders of a bishop (perhaps the image of the Bishop of Winchester who founded the college in the 15th century) raising his hand in a blessing to all travellers for a safe journey as they leave the City.

The college was founded in 1458 and has the unusual attraction of a deer park which dates back to 1705. If you visit in spring you may be lucky enough to coincide with the stunning display of the rare purple and white flower, fritillaria meleagris, commonly known as the Snake’s Head Fritillary which cram Magdalen’s water meadows bordering the Cherwell. This delicate and unusual looking flower goes by many other names: the checkered daffodil, frog-cup, Guinea-hen flower and leper lily and Magdalen is one of the few places in Britain where you can see it growing wild in such numbers. Magdalen’s Great Tower, standing 48 metres high is one of the University landmarks and was completed in 1509 - it is probably best known for its role in May Day morning celebrations where since the middle of the 17th century the college’s choristers have sung anthems from its top at dawn to welcome in the month of May to an audience of May Morning revellers who throng the streets below. The tower also played an important strategic role during the Civil War when King Charles I made Oxford his base after victory at the battle of Edgehill in 1642. It provided a good look out point and was equipped with a supply of stones to hurl at any enemy which dared to attack the city.

Look out in London

Across the road from Kensington Gardens (between the Notting Hill Gate and Marble Arch Oxford Tube stops) you’ll pass 100 Bayswater Road, the house where J M Barrie, author of Peter Pan lived for many years at the start of the 20th century. Look out for the Blue Plaque on the house’s wall commemorating this. It was while walking his large dog, Porthos, in Kensington Gardens that Barrie first met the young Llewelyn Davies boys who became his inspiration for Peter Pan and the Lost Boys. The setting of Kensington Gardens was integral to the story of Peter Pan and he published his first story about the boy who never grew up, The Little White Bird, in 1902 in which Peter flies from his nursery window and lands in the gardens beside the Long Water. This spot is the site of a charming statue of Peter Pan by the sculptor Sir George Frampton which Barrie paid for himself. Barrie wanted an air of magic to surround the sculpture and so if was erected in secret overnight on May Day 1912. Barrie placed an announcement in The Times, “There is a surprise in store for the children who go to Kensington Gardens to feed the ducks in the Serpentine this morning. Down by the little bay on the south-western side of the tail of the Serpentine they will find a May-day gift by Mr J M Barrie, a figure of Peter Pan blowing his pipe on the stump of a tree, with fairies and mice and squirrels all around.”