← All articles · United Kingdom · 29 November 2015

Oxford, United Kingdom: The tower climb, the Pitt Rivers and the dinosaurs

Two days out in Oxford: the climb up the University Church tower for the skyline, and the Pitt Rivers and Natural History Museum when the weather turned.

Two days out in Oxford, four years apart. The first one went up a tower. The second stayed indoors, which in November is the correct decision.

October 2011: up the tower

Our first Oxford day was an outdoor one. October gave us storm light and a dry afternoon, so we didn't go near a museum: just the streets, the college gates, and then the long climb up the tower of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, which is where Oxford stops being a town and turns into a skyline.

Ground level: the Radcliffe Camera

Inga standing at the railings in front of the round domed Radcliffe Camera in Oxford, a bicycle leaning on the fence nearby — The Radcliffe Camera, Oxford's great round reading room, with Inga and an obligatory bicycle in attendance.

Up the tower

It's a narrow, winding staircase and there's no polite way past anyone coming down. Worth every step.

View from the tower of the University Church over the dome of the Radcliffe Camera and the quad of All Souls College in Oxford — From the tower of the University Church: the Camera's dome up close, All Souls laid out next door.

Rooftop view of the twin Gothic towers and quad of All Souls College in Oxford under a dramatic sky — All Souls and its twin towers collecting a bit of storm light. Spires as far as the eye can be bothered to count.

View from the University Church tower across Oxford college quads, rooftops and a distant chapel spire — The other side of the tower: quads, chimneys and gargoyle-height Oxford, best enjoyed while getting your breath back.

Back down on the High Street

A Gothic stone college gatehouse on Oxford's High Street with carved bay windows and a royal coat of arms above the wooden doors — One of the great carved gatehouses on the High Street, coat of arms included. In Oxford even the front doors have front doors.

We didn't get inside a single museum on this trip, which we fixed four years later on a much colder day.

November 2015: the museums

Oxford in late November 2015 was cold enough to make the decision for us: this would be an indoors day. Which in Oxford isn't a punishment at all, because the University Museum of Natural History and the Pitt Rivers Museum share one building, cost nothing, and can eat an entire afternoon between them.

The Museum of Natural History

The main court of the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, dinosaur skeletons among display cases under a Victorian glass roof held up by slender iron columns — The great court: dinosaurs down the middle, cast iron columns like a Gothic greenhouse, and daylight pouring through the glass roof.

Inga leaning in to look closely at a huge animal skull on open display in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History — Inga going nose to nose with a skull roughly the size of an armchair. Much of the museum is out in the open like this, no glass in the way.

Inga crouching to study the lower shelves of a specimen case in the museum court, skeletons displayed all around — The bottom shelves are where the museum hides its weirdest residents. Worth the crouch.

Through the door into the Pitt Rivers

Through a doorway at the back of the court, the light drops and you walk into the Pitt Rivers, one of the strangest and best museums in Britain: half a million objects stacked case upon case, with a totem pole standing over the lot.

The dim interior of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, dense glass cases on two levels with a tall carved totem pole rising through the gallery — The Pitt Rivers, lit like a cabinet of secrets. The totem pole gets two storeys to itself.

File Oxford under cities that reward bad weather. The first visit went the other way entirely, all rooftops and college gates on a dry October afternoon. And for the other end of the day-trip spectrum, there's always the seaside at Brighton.