Oxford and last post for a while.

Just to let you know this will be my last post for a while and unfortunately I  will not be able to visit your blogs.   I return to France at the weekend and I have arranged for my French phone to be reconnected on 1 April.  I have also asked for the Internet to be connected at the same time, but generally this never seems to work quite as expected!  I hope to be back with you all at the very latest by mid-April, but if I get a chance to do a quick post from a friend's computer, I will at least let you know that I have arrrived and  how everything is.  No promises though.

Meanwhile here are a few photos that I took in Oxford while visiting  with Anne last week.  Anne has some beautiful photos which are different from mine, so please take a look at her blog HERE for part 1 and HERE for part 2.

As Anne has mentioned, we first visited Christchurch College; this is the view from the opposite side to Anne's photos.   I just fell in love with this huge tree!

and from the front

We than proceeded to Merton College Chapel; Anne has some interesting photos en route on her blog.  The doors were shut, but we managed to find the doors open at St John Baptist College Chapel.

The Chapel was consecrated in 1530, dedicated to St Bernard of Clairvaux, when this was the college for contemplative Cistercian monks. It was re-dedicated in 1557 to St John the Baptist. The present interior is mainly Victorian Gothic, with recent lighting and heating and a notable new organ.

We walked down to the Thames

and peered under the bridge

Walking on further, I loved this old building

We walked by the Hertford Bridge, popularly known as the Bridge of Sighs because it is similar to the famous bridge in Venice.

We then strolled by the Town Hall

and the Sheldonian Theatre

We than discovered that the doors were open at the church of St Mary Magdalen

The church lies outside the area of the medieval walled city.  A wooden church, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen, stood on this site a thousand years ago.  Viking raiders burnt much of Oxford in 1010 and 1013, and the wooden church appears to have gone up in flames.

In 1074, Robert d'Oilli, the Norman Constable of Oxford, built a single aisle chapel to replace the Saxon building. He attached St. Mary Magdalen to his collegiate chapel of St. George in the castle. 

In 1194, St Hugh of Avalon, then Bishop of Lincoln, again rebuilt the church; some of the work remains, though much has been restored.  There seems to have been work on and off over the years, the most recent being the redevelopment of the west end of the church including a new organ, first used in 2003.  More information can be found HERE.

I have many more photos of Oxford, but on my return to France I will naturally be concentrating on French posts; nevertheless, I may just sneak a couple of Oxford posts in at some stage, especially some of the nice pictures I took of doors!!!