October 3, 2014 12:59 pm
Oxford’s new architecture
Contemporary buildings have reinvigorated – rather than ruined – this historic city
W
e ate our breakfasts at a table on the High Street, while there thundered past us the desperate traffic maelstrom that is the usual morning condition of Oxford. As I sat there rather despondent, I chanced to notice, between passing vehicles, the entrance to Catte Street on the other side of the High. Just for a moment I glimpsed over there, as in a vision, the Oxford dream of tradition, made manifest in stately golden stone, domed, spired, pinnacled and rectangled in timeless calm and assurance. It was, I thought just for that moment, the true presence of my dear old alma mater.
Of course it wasn’t. In an instant the illusion was shattered, by the screaming siren of an ambulance and the passing of another few hundred cars, and I was obliged to recognise again an Oxford university truth: that this most complex and fascinating of institutions has almost always been in a state of flux, if not of conflict. Over the centuries there has inevitably been friction between the influential concourse of colleges that is the university, and the old provincial town that was always its host, and is now a jam-packed industrial and commercial city.
Contemporary buildings have reinvigorated – rather than ruined – this historic city
W
e ate our breakfasts at a table on the High Street, while there thundered past us the desperate traffic maelstrom that is the usual morning condition of Oxford. As I sat there rather despondent, I chanced to notice, between passing vehicles, the entrance to Catte Street on the other side of the High. Just for a moment I glimpsed over there, as in a vision, the Oxford dream of tradition, made manifest in stately golden stone, domed, spired, pinnacled and rectangled in timeless calm and assurance. It was, I thought just for that moment, the true presence of my dear old alma mater.
Of course it wasn’t. In an instant the illusion was shattered, by the screaming siren of an ambulance and the passing of another few hundred cars, and I was obliged to recognise again an Oxford university truth: that this most complex and fascinating of institutions has almost always been in a state of flux, if not of conflict. Over the centuries there has inevitably been friction between the influential concourse of colleges that is the university, and the old provincial town that was always its host, and is now a jam-packed industrial and commercial city.
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Some of the symptoms are architectural. The more the town has developed, the more tightly new university buildings have had to be socketed into their settings. In aerial photographs, the historic centre of the place may look a perfect unity, all of a genial piece, all like Catte Street, but the true architectural composition of Universitas Oxoniensis is a balance between two structural kinds, the Monumental and the Intricate, intermittently circumscribed nowadays by the ring road that is Oxford’s true 21st-century rampart.
On the one hand, down the centuries academe has flung up one brazen declaration of consequence after another, from fortress-like medieval gatehouses to Keble College’s grand High Anglican red-brick (1868) or St Catherine’s doctrinal modernism (1964), where even the cutlery was designed to pattern. But, on the other hand, the university’s colleges have more lately specialised in neat, unobtrusive buildings fitted into their ancient surroundings like pieces in a jigsaw.
Sooner or later, I suspect, sheer shortage of space will mean that Oxford, town and gown alike, will have to build upwards – already there are complaints about threats to the legendary skyline. For the moment, though, prime examples of both traditional kinds, grand or unassuming, are still taking shape; so after one last coffee, seizing a moment when a stutter in the traffic gave me an escape, I set off in a hazy sort of way to cheer myself up with some contemporary specimens.
To identify some, I had already tried looking up Oxford University in the Yellow Pages directory, which was the only one I could find. It offered references to the university’s air squadron, boat club, parks, press, naval unit and football club, but no central inquiry or switchboard number at all. However, I thought this happily apposite to my random quest, and I presently found for myself two striking examples of those contrasting architectural forms – award-winning specimens, as one must report in the new orthodoxy, of Oxford Monumental and Oxford Intricate.
. . .
The first was not obvious. The 17th-century Wadham College backs on to a narrow medieval backstreet called Holywell, and there it has owned, more or less forever, a little row of modest shops and houses. Among them is a single fairly unobtrusive but unmistakably contemporary façade, neatly inserted there but not exactly welcoming, so I made the trek around to the main gate of the college to discover what it was.
Wadham is famous for its beautiful gardens and its several separate quadrangles, and I would guess that not many sightseers look for its nooks and crannies. But ah yes, they said at once at the lodge, that will be our new Graduate Study Centre, and it turned out to be a perfectly delightful example of contemporary Oxford Intricate. Tucked tactfully away in a corner of an inner quadrangle, it is a small oblong block of coarse pale stone, with a lift tower, and it is attended at first-floor level by an enchanting small garden – a secretive jumbled bower of flowering plants that suggested to me, bemused as I was, partly the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and partly the High Line park in Manhattan. I felt rurally, possibly narcotically, alone. While I loitered there, a solitary undergraduate sauntered by with an armful of books, on his way to some more profoundly embedded quarters, but there was no more than a hum of distant traffic, which I pretended to myself was only bees. The little building modestly and justly basked, I thought, in its award from the Royal Institute of British Architects, announced earlier this year.
. . .
Across the historic centre, I found another, very different, RIBA prizewinner. The development area commonly known as the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter (ROQ) is a vast building site occupying demolished outworks of the Radcliffe Infirmary, itself now removed to the country. It is more or less centred upon the tower of thequondam university observatory, now part of Green Templeton College and still in fine form.
What better setting could there be, thought I, for a flourish of Oxford Monumental? Most of ROQ is still empty, except for builders’ paraphernalia. I am assured, though, that a master plan foresees a formidable assembly of disparate university buildings, and when I walked into it out of the wistful old infirmary quadrangle, I found myself confronted by the first of them: a magnificent new Mathematics Institute, meticulously rational in proportion and glass panelling.
Its glazed central atrium is flanked by two taller wings, chequered with rectangular scores of identical window-inlets, and it is big without pomp, consequential without extravagance. Everything about it, indeed, expresses calculation – mathematical symbols pave the entrance, and one interior canopy displays the geometrical theorem known to some of us as Pascal’s Mystic Hexagram. It is built to house 500 researchers and 900 undergraduates, and it marks, they say, a new chapter in the history of mathematics at Oxford.
But to my mind what gives the building its best claim to Oxford Monumentalism is the way in which it osmotically incorporates the nearby presence of that grand old observatory tower across the ROQ. Some people think this the most beautiful building in all Oxford, and it is a truly iconic 18th-century Tower of the Winds, with a copper-sheathed globe on top. The combination and the contrast between the two neighbouring structures, a relationship ageless, peaceful yet intellectually inspiring, seemed to me just like that Catte Street vision of mine.
So I was reassured. It took us 40 minutes to drive out of Oxford next morning, so incessant, impenetrable and often implacable were the queues of vehicles coming and going up the High, but I no longer felt despondent. Those award-winners had shown me, I thought, that the heart of the university still beat comfortingly. “After all, the dream’s still there,” said I sententiously to my companion.
“The dream?” she retorted as we narrowly avoided extermination by double-decker bus, “What dream?” But she was never a member of this university, and she does not understand.
-------------------------------------------
Some of the symptoms are architectural. The more the town has developed, the more tightly new university buildings have had to be socketed into their settings. In aerial photographs, the historic centre of the place may look a perfect unity, all of a genial piece, all like Catte Street, but the true architectural composition of Universitas Oxoniensis is a balance between two structural kinds, the Monumental and the Intricate, intermittently circumscribed nowadays by the ring road that is Oxford’s true 21st-century rampart.
On the one hand, down the centuries academe has flung up one brazen declaration of consequence after another, from fortress-like medieval gatehouses to Keble College’s grand High Anglican red-brick (1868) or St Catherine’s doctrinal modernism (1964), where even the cutlery was designed to pattern. But, on the other hand, the university’s colleges have more lately specialised in neat, unobtrusive buildings fitted into their ancient surroundings like pieces in a jigsaw.
Sooner or later, I suspect, sheer shortage of space will mean that Oxford, town and gown alike, will have to build upwards – already there are complaints about threats to the legendary skyline. For the moment, though, prime examples of both traditional kinds, grand or unassuming, are still taking shape; so after one last coffee, seizing a moment when a stutter in the traffic gave me an escape, I set off in a hazy sort of way to cheer myself up with some contemporary specimens.
To identify some, I had already tried looking up Oxford University in the Yellow Pages directory, which was the only one I could find. It offered references to the university’s air squadron, boat club, parks, press, naval unit and football club, but no central inquiry or switchboard number at all. However, I thought this happily apposite to my random quest, and I presently found for myself two striking examples of those contrasting architectural forms – award-winning specimens, as one must report in the new orthodoxy, of Oxford Monumental and Oxford Intricate.
. . .
The first was not obvious. The 17th-century Wadham College backs on to a narrow medieval backstreet called Holywell, and there it has owned, more or less forever, a little row of modest shops and houses. Among them is a single fairly unobtrusive but unmistakably contemporary façade, neatly inserted there but not exactly welcoming, so I made the trek around to the main gate of the college to discover what it was.
Wadham is famous for its beautiful gardens and its several separate quadrangles, and I would guess that not many sightseers look for its nooks and crannies. But ah yes, they said at once at the lodge, that will be our new Graduate Study Centre, and it turned out to be a perfectly delightful example of contemporary Oxford Intricate. Tucked tactfully away in a corner of an inner quadrangle, it is a small oblong block of coarse pale stone, with a lift tower, and it is attended at first-floor level by an enchanting small garden – a secretive jumbled bower of flowering plants that suggested to me, bemused as I was, partly the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and partly the High Line park in Manhattan. I felt rurally, possibly narcotically, alone. While I loitered there, a solitary undergraduate sauntered by with an armful of books, on his way to some more profoundly embedded quarters, but there was no more than a hum of distant traffic, which I pretended to myself was only bees. The little building modestly and justly basked, I thought, in its award from the Royal Institute of British Architects, announced earlier this year.
. . .
Across the historic centre, I found another, very different, RIBA prizewinner. The development area commonly known as the Radcliffe Observatory Quarter (ROQ) is a vast building site occupying demolished outworks of the Radcliffe Infirmary, itself now removed to the country. It is more or less centred upon the tower of thequondam university observatory, now part of Green Templeton College and still in fine form.
What better setting could there be, thought I, for a flourish of Oxford Monumental? Most of ROQ is still empty, except for builders’ paraphernalia. I am assured, though, that a master plan foresees a formidable assembly of disparate university buildings, and when I walked into it out of the wistful old infirmary quadrangle, I found myself confronted by the first of them: a magnificent new Mathematics Institute, meticulously rational in proportion and glass panelling.
Its glazed central atrium is flanked by two taller wings, chequered with rectangular scores of identical window-inlets, and it is big without pomp, consequential without extravagance. Everything about it, indeed, expresses calculation – mathematical symbols pave the entrance, and one interior canopy displays the geometrical theorem known to some of us as Pascal’s Mystic Hexagram. It is built to house 500 researchers and 900 undergraduates, and it marks, they say, a new chapter in the history of mathematics at Oxford.
But to my mind what gives the building its best claim to Oxford Monumentalism is the way in which it osmotically incorporates the nearby presence of that grand old observatory tower across the ROQ. Some people think this the most beautiful building in all Oxford, and it is a truly iconic 18th-century Tower of the Winds, with a copper-sheathed globe on top. The combination and the contrast between the two neighbouring structures, a relationship ageless, peaceful yet intellectually inspiring, seemed to me just like that Catte Street vision of mine.
So I was reassured. It took us 40 minutes to drive out of Oxford next morning, so incessant, impenetrable and often implacable were the queues of vehicles coming and going up the High, but I no longer felt despondent. Those award-winners had shown me, I thought, that the heart of the university still beat comfortingly. “After all, the dream’s still there,” said I sententiously to my companion.
“The dream?” she retorted as we narrowly avoided extermination by double-decker bus, “What dream?” But she was never a member of this university, and she does not understand.
-------------------------------------------
Details
Jan Morris was a guest of the Old Bank (oldbank-hotel.co.uk), a 42-room Georgian hotel on Oxford’s High Street. Double rooms cost from £180 including breakfast
Jan Morris’s latest book, ‘Ciao Carpaccio!’ is published by Pallas Athene. She is also the author of ‘Oxford’ (Faber) and editor of ‘The Oxford book of Oxford’ (Oxford University Press)
Photographs: Will Pryce; Lee Fitzgerald
-------------------------------------------
Jan Morris was a guest of the Old Bank (oldbank-hotel.co.uk), a 42-room Georgian hotel on Oxford’s High Street. Double rooms cost from £180 including breakfast
Jan Morris’s latest book, ‘Ciao Carpaccio!’ is published by Pallas Athene. She is also the author of ‘Oxford’ (Faber) and editor of ‘The Oxford book of Oxford’ (Oxford University Press)
Photographs: Will Pryce; Lee Fitzgerald
-------------------------------------------
More academic architecture to seek out
Universities have become big business, and in order to attract the best students, learning is no longer enough, writes Edwin Heathcote.
These days, universities need the facilities of five-star hotels and the cultural and social capital of global cities. Architecture is increasingly being made to work: it is no longer enough to commission dull dorms and generic quads; “starchitects” are being commissioned to help universities become global brands, in the same way cultural institutions use architecture to put themselves on the map.
But though the trend may be accelerating, it would be a mistake to think there is anything new in seeing university architecture as marketing. You can trace architectural taste through the buildings on campus. Mies van der Rohe’s minimalist campus at the Illinois Institute of Technology and Alvar Aalto’s huge brick Baker House at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were perfect snapshots of the austere postwar era: functional, self-effacing and cool. The more recent additions to those campuses were something radically different – bold, theatrical, self-aware. Rem Koolhaas’s McCormick Tribune Campus Center at IIT and Frank Gehry’s Stata Center at MIT remake architecture as billboard, as trailer for the excitement inside.
Architecture also provides a useful indicator of status in academia – the more prestigious the architect, the more favoured the subject matter. At the moment, business schools and biotechnology lead the way. David Chipperfield’s HEC campus in Paris is coolly impressive, while Irish firm Grafton Architects’ Bocconi University in Milan is a visceral example of a new concrete brutalism. Cambridge’s cool Sainsbury labs, meanwhile, won architects Stanton Williams the Stirling Prize in 2012. Up for this year’s prize is one of central London’s most striking new landmarks, O’Donnell & Tuomey’s Saw Swee Hock student centre for the London School of Economics, a fragmented, operatic collision of brick planes that lifts the familiar, banal student union into a league with major cultural buildings.
Like cultural blockbusters, many of these structures are essentially public buildings. They are open, welcoming and a part of the public realm. You’re free to have a coffee and a wander, while enjoying the kind of architecture that otherwise often demands a huge fee. With universities becoming more expensive and more fiercely competitive, their architecture has increasingly been opened up to demonstrate to the world why you should want to be there. While the privileged quads of the oldest colleges inspired nervous apprehension that perhaps one didn’t belong, this is architecture for all.
Edwin Heathcote is the FT’s architecture critic
Photograph: Dennis Gilbert
Universities have become big business, and in order to attract the best students, learning is no longer enough, writes Edwin Heathcote.
These days, universities need the facilities of five-star hotels and the cultural and social capital of global cities. Architecture is increasingly being made to work: it is no longer enough to commission dull dorms and generic quads; “starchitects” are being commissioned to help universities become global brands, in the same way cultural institutions use architecture to put themselves on the map.
But though the trend may be accelerating, it would be a mistake to think there is anything new in seeing university architecture as marketing. You can trace architectural taste through the buildings on campus. Mies van der Rohe’s minimalist campus at the Illinois Institute of Technology and Alvar Aalto’s huge brick Baker House at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology were perfect snapshots of the austere postwar era: functional, self-effacing and cool. The more recent additions to those campuses were something radically different – bold, theatrical, self-aware. Rem Koolhaas’s McCormick Tribune Campus Center at IIT and Frank Gehry’s Stata Center at MIT remake architecture as billboard, as trailer for the excitement inside.
Architecture also provides a useful indicator of status in academia – the more prestigious the architect, the more favoured the subject matter. At the moment, business schools and biotechnology lead the way. David Chipperfield’s HEC campus in Paris is coolly impressive, while Irish firm Grafton Architects’ Bocconi University in Milan is a visceral example of a new concrete brutalism. Cambridge’s cool Sainsbury labs, meanwhile, won architects Stanton Williams the Stirling Prize in 2012. Up for this year’s prize is one of central London’s most striking new landmarks, O’Donnell & Tuomey’s Saw Swee Hock student centre for the London School of Economics, a fragmented, operatic collision of brick planes that lifts the familiar, banal student union into a league with major cultural buildings.
Like cultural blockbusters, many of these structures are essentially public buildings. They are open, welcoming and a part of the public realm. You’re free to have a coffee and a wander, while enjoying the kind of architecture that otherwise often demands a huge fee. With universities becoming more expensive and more fiercely competitive, their architecture has increasingly been opened up to demonstrate to the world why you should want to be there. While the privileged quads of the oldest colleges inspired nervous apprehension that perhaps one didn’t belong, this is architecture for all.
Edwin Heathcote is the FT’s architecture critic
Photograph: Dennis Gilbert
In Search of Oxford
May 26, 2014
When I took off in late October to join my husband,
a law professor on sabbatical in Oxford, I thought I knew what to
expect, thanks to all the books and movies that have been set in this
ridiculously pretty, medieval town in south central England. Evelyn
Waugh’s “Brideshead Revisited” — the 1945 novel that grapples with the
allure of aristocracy and privilege — had prepared me for the sight of
elegant undergrads romping about, perhaps carrying bottles of Champagne,
on the vast green meadows of Christ Church college. Colin Dexter’s
“Inspector Morse” series (both the books and the television show) had
warned me about the dangers of tripping over dead bodies. And that very
last bit of the recent film “An Education” prepared me for flocks of
students riding bicycles on their way to conquer DNA analysis on the one
hand and the liturgical language of Theravada Buddhism on the other.
Oxford has in fact inspired
innumerable literary and cinematic works, and it’s easy to see why: The
place is a many-layered confection of history, aspiration, ambition,
class, elegance, yearning, wealth, trade and all-things-poetic,
including poetry-spouting students and bona fide poets (among them,
Philip Larkin, W. H. Auden and John Betjeman). But it’s also a working
city filled with people who have nothing to do with lofty language —
though the vision of the 19th-century poet and literary critic Matthew
Arnold is, in fact, ubiquitous: “And that sweet city with her dreaming
spires,/ She needs not June for beauty’s heightening ...”
Perhaps the best way to get a
handle on the whole megillah is atop the University Church of St. Mary
the Virgin, with its 14th-century spire, right smack dab in the middle
of the action, on High Street at Radcliffe Square. From here you can
take it all in: the town’s location in the Thames Valley, the silky
silver river itself (also locally called the Isis, especially in regard
to rowing), the site of the original “oxen ford” at Folly Bridge, the
rail lines, the gardens and meadows, the canals and, of course, the 38
separate colleges, with their quadrangles, porter’s lodges, towers and
glowing facades, that together make up the University of Oxford.
Yes, the university is
everywhere, and it’s reason enough for the town to exist, because
without the university — which started out as a collection of medieval
monastic communities and evolved into “academic halls” before giving
birth to the first colleges — there would be no city walls (the remnants
of which can still be seen in glimpses), no shopping streets, no
Victorian extravaganzas of turrets and gables and, certainly, no pubs or
flocks of speeding, zigzagging bicyclists rushing off to their next
lectures.
Nor would there be so much
confusion (at least among Americans) about just what this place is,
anyhow, because unlike most universities, Oxford (and its kissing
cousin, Cambridge) operates on a hybrid system composed of the separate
colleges and the university as a whole. In fact, the system is so
complex and status-driven that it would take a colonial like me a
lifetime to get it right.
But just because I wasn’t an
insider did not mean that the place wasn’t ready and willing to be
explored. Which meant wheels of my own, specifically a sturdy
three-speed equipped with mudguards, which I rented from a shop on
Cowley Road.
It may not be an obvious place
to start, but I began my own meandering exploration of all-things-Oxford
in Iffley Village, once a separate entity but now within the city
limits. I wanted to get a sense of what Oxford may have been like before
it became synonymous with the University of Oxford, and Iffley — with
its typically English mix of thatched-roof and half-timbered houses with
names like Grist Cottage and the Malt House, centuries-old stone walls,
winding lanes, fields, geese and late-Victorian terrace houses — does
just that.
On just about any lane or
meadow in Iffley you can imagine yourself in medieval Oxford, its
fortified center surrounded by the watery stew that was once the marshy
convergence of the Thames and the River Cherwell. In those days, Oxford
was a north-south, east-west trading hub with its center, to this day,
at Carfax Tower, about a five-minute walk uphill from the Thames.
(“Carfax” is derived from the French carrefour, or in English,
“crossroads.”)
If it’s just post-Norman
Conquest you’re after, St. Mary the Virgin is in itself worth the field
trip to Iffley. Sitting amid an ancient graveyard, the church is very
much in use, its pews full on Sunday mornings. With its list of
“incumbents” dating all the way back to Oliver of 1170, its original
square stone font, its soaring roof held up by locally quarried stone,
St. Mary the Virgin is the kind of place that stuns you into reverent
silence.
A horse in Port Meadow.
Andrew Testa for The New York Times
Afterward you can get a pint
and fish and chips at the Prince of Wales on Church Way (a
dog-and-child-friendly traditional pub that is a favorite of my
husband’s) or, if your stomach can wait, cross the Thames at the
elevated crossing at Iffley Lock and walk upstream on the towpath to the
Isis Farmhouse, a popular watering-and-grazing spot that serves basic
pub fare — casseroles, mash, roasts, stews and homemade baked goods —
with tables inside by the fire or outside overlooking the water. If
you’re lucky you might see college rowing teams being put through their
paces. Also ducks and swans, moored houseboats and, depending on the
season, either a lot of rain or a lot of wildflowers.
As I was in the neighborhood in
late fall, I had no choice: If I wanted to wander by bike, I had to be
prepared for the damp. And what, after all, is a little rain? You will
notice that the natives don’t seem to mind it, and go tramping around in
all kinds of weather, their dogs bounding ahead of them and their lower
extremities encased in muddy Wellies.
And here they are, the intrepid
English, farther up the river, in the vast Port Meadow just northwest
of the center of Oxford, a place used continuously for grazing for over
1,000 years, and where, to this day, horses and cows outnumber Homo
sapiens. You can wander the meadow or continue on the footpath, over the
bridge, past boathouses and through various gates and, if you’re game,
down a path on the left to the village of Binsey, with its Treacle Well,
which the Dormouse described in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”
Farther on are the grassy
remains of the medieval Godstow Abbey, where I stopped to imagine it
filled with Benedictine nuns. Following on, I at last came to one of
Inspector Morse’s favorite watering holes, the Trout in Wolvercote,
where I sat under a heated umbrella on the terrace overlooking the
river, and had hot chocolate and a vegetable pie, admiring, all the
while, the ducks and geese and the sturdy clientele enjoying their
Sunday outings.
By the time I had finished, the
shadows were growing long, so instead of returning the way I had come I
high-tailed it back into town on the east side of the river, first by
road and then along the stretch of the canal that runs roughly parallel
with Woodstock Road and divides Oxford’s northern neighborhoods from
acres of watery meadowlands, and which gave me the back-end view of
gardens, alleys and steep canalside houses.
A note for those inclined to
fashionable footwear: Don’t even think about it. And that’s because in
Oxford, these boots are made for walking: through the winding streets,
over cobblestones, up battlements and along all kinds of footpaths,
including the towpath that lines the 78-mile-long canal, which once
served as part of a trade link between the Midlands and London. (The
canal is part of the 2,000 miles of the Canal & River Trust.) Now
the canal forms the western boundary of North Oxford’s Jericho section —
where Jude’s three children come to a terrible end in “Jude the
Obscure” — located at that time outside the city wall. Today the area is
one of the trendiest in Oxfordshire, where one night my husband and I
had a good if unremarkable dinner surrounded mainly by undergrads and
their parents at the très chic Brasserie Blanc.
A playing field near Merton College.
Andrew Testa for The New York Times
With the 19th-century Oxford
University Press spreading itself out along north-south Walton Street
like some great winged beast, Jericho gives way to cafes, bookstores and
residential blocks of graceful Victorian and Edwardian houses, with
other styles — neo-Georgian, late Gothic, Arts and Crafts — sprinkled
in. But some 224 years ago when the canal arrived, it was a place of
pestilence and poverty, where workers typically lived in “two up, two
down” houses, which can still be seen on Cranham Street, though today
they are far more likely to house college professors or publishers than
laborers.
If you’re in the mood for more
Victorian slums, you can’t do any better than the small island enclave
of Osney, along the river and separated from the rest of Oxford by
narrow backwaters, about a 15-minute walk from the city center. Built
for railroad workers in the mid-19th century, today Osney is home to
tidy two-story terraced cottages laid out in the original planned grid,
every inch of it considerably more costly than in yesteryear.
Another Oxford neighborhood
that I like — in part for its cheap ethnic restaurants — is Cowley on
the city’s southeast flank. Here, just a mile or so from Carfax, you
will find a diverse neighborhood of primarily smallish
early-20th-century houses built for the lower-middle and artisan
classes. That was when William Morris Limited began to mass produce cars
in what had once been Oxford Military College, on the Oxford Ring Road
in Cowley, creating a city of two halves that exists to this day (and is
captured by the saying that “Oxford is the left bank of Cowley”). Here
are storefronts boasting everything from Polish and halal specialty
foods to ecclesiastical garb (who knows when you might need a new
cassock or verger’s gown?) and, of course, pubs.
And then there are the glories
of Oxford central, the place of walled gardens and walled-off colleges,
medieval lanes, ancient churches, glorious vistas, music, museums,
libraries and lecture halls. The Botanic Garden alone, the oldest in the
country, could absorb an entire day, and even in November intoxicated
me with its grasses, dahlias, salvias, English yews and something called
“purple bush.”
Riches? Oxford has them,
starting with the Ashmolean Museum. This is what I like about it: 1.
It’s free. 2. You can leave your stuff in a locker downstairs for £1,
but you get your money back when you return the key. 3. The museum is
neither small nor large, so you don’t get a museum hangover. 4. The
collection.
A reading room in the Bodleian Library.
Andrew Testa for The New York Times
And what a collection, from the
silver and gold dinnerware that Corpus Christi College hid from
Cromwell, to contemporary art and the pre-Raphaelites. It’s enough to
make you just stand there, blinking, trying to decide where to start. I
started on the second floor in an orientation gallery, which explains
the cultural explosion that happened when east-west trading routes were
established in early modernity. But no sooner had I wandered one room
away, into English ceramics, than I was transfixed, a deer in the
headlights. Here was a fantasyland of afternoon tea, with seemingly
every type of English pattern and plate ever devised, decorated with
astonishingly lifelike painted flowers of rose and rose gold, pale
yellow and radiant turquoise, with butterflies and climbing vines and
birds. But there was more — much, much more — including the wares of
Japan, China, Italy and the Netherlands, Delftware, Greek and Roman
sculpture, textiles and a whole room of Pissarro and his descendants.
From the Ashmolean, it’s just a
few steps to everything else you may want to see in Oxford, including
Blackwell’s, at 51 Broad Street, perhaps England’s most famous
bookstore, with its gazillions of books (new as well as secondhand).
From there, it’s your proverbial hop, skip and jump to the Bodleian
Library, which isn’t anything at all like the library at the college I
went to. It was in the Bodleian’s original core, completed in 1488, that
the first university classroom appeared independent of monastic
organization. Here, divinity students were asked questions like: “How
many angels live in Heaven?” under the lierne vaulted ceiling adorned
with more than 400 sculptured figures. Above is Duke Humfrey’s Library,
added some years later, where the university’s original collection of
books is kept, literally under lock and key. Airport paperbacks these
aren’t, but rather, individually written, ancient, brittle and heavy
manuscripts, as well as original leather-bound books chained to their
place on the walls. (Casual visitors need to be on a tour to get in.)
Certain key scenes in the Harry
Potter franchise were filmed here, but if it’s more current stuff
you’re after, go through the courtyard to the Radcliffe Camera, a
classical circular building closed to the public but open to students,
who these days are as likely to be studying their Facebook pages as
their Dante, but whatever. There’s an almost endless amount of music,
theater, dance, movies and lectures to go to in and around the
university, as well as evensong at Christ Church Cathedral and various
college chapels. A good place to get a sense of the cultural feast is oxfordcityguide.com.
And from here, at the Radcliffe
Camera, spreads the Oxford of the dreaming spires, the ancient, walled
colleges bumping up one against the other and connected by a warren of
lanes and roads. Most of them are closed to visitors but can be glimpsed
through arched entryways, over walls and around hedges. In the case of
Christ Church, one can enter for a fee.
Speaking of Christ Church
college, it too appears in the Harry Potter films, for instance, when
Harry and other incoming students first get to Hogwarts and are greeted
by Professor McGonagall on the 16th-century staircase to the Great Hall.
More to the point, the college has a beautiful cathedral with
astonishingly detailed stained-glass windows, including the 19th-century
St. Frideswide Window created by Edward Burne-Jones. (Frideswide is
Oxford’s patron saint.)
Radcliffe Square, with the circular Radcliffe Camera building at the center.
Andrew Testa for The New York Times
Head down this-a-way (and it’s
all very well marked) to the breathtaking abundance of stuff that is the
Pitt Rivers Museum, named not after an estuary, but after the
lieutenant general who founded the museum in 1884, seemingly so he could
have a place to put his anthropological collections, arranged
thematically — in other words, by type of stuff rather than by origin or
date — and today the objects number somewhere in the half-a-million
range. So if you have a hankering for, say, masks from Africa, Melanesia
and North America; Blackfoot and Plains Indian shirts; musical
instruments from all over the globe; or the loot Capt. James Cook hauled
back from his second voyage of discovery in the Pacific, most of it
arranged in large glass cases with ascending layers of displays on
wraparound balconies — well, then, this is the place.
Come back to the land of
chess-piece perfection and ask yourself, what next? One answer might be
the Museum of Oxford, a funny little place tucked into the
late-Victorian Town Hall on St. Aldate’s. A series of maps shows you
exactly how Oxford began, on dry land above marshy wetlands and the
river, and how it then grew and changed, from its founding around 900,
well before the Norman invasion, to the present.
Since I can’t get enough of ye
olden, olden, really olden days, I also went on the somewhat hokey but
fascinating tour of the ancient Oxford Castle. It’s a weird place, part
11th-century tower built for William the Conqueror to help control the
area, part disused prison with a large grassy mound in the middle. Most
of the original castle was destroyed in the English Civil War, but you
can still get a sense of how imposing, drafty and unpleasant it must
have been in its day. Today a large part of what had been the prison
houses a luxurious Malmaison hotel, with cells now serving as guest
rooms.
So what and where is the real
Oxford? The medieval wattle-and-daub, timber-framed houses, one of which
now houses Pret a Manger on Cornmarket in the central shopping
district? Or the nearby Gap and Marks & Spencer stores? The endless
green spaces? The lanes filled with boxlike rowhouses? The elegant
architectural extravaganzas of Jericho? The houseboats parked along the
canal? The rowers on the Isis? The pubs? The libraries? The lecture
rooms?
For me, a more pressing
question was: If there are ghosts of Sebastian Flyte and his teddy bear,
Aloysius, to be found, where would they be?
And so it was with Sebastian,
the charming, rich and frequently drunk protagonist of “Brideshead
Revisited,” in mind that, on my last day in Oxford, I romped, as
Sebastian might have with his best friend, Charles Ryder, around Christ
Church Meadow under a gray December sky. To my right, cows grazed;
behind me, bicyclists wove in and out of traffic on busy St. Aldate’s;
and on the tantalizing far side of the walls, the college, with its
spires, towers, gates and Cathedral, glowed in the pale afternoon light.
WHERE TO EAT
Cheap (£3 to £8, or about $5 to $13 at $1.63 to the pound):
West Cornwall Pasty Company (5 Cornmarket Street; westcornwallpasty.co.uk) is a fast-food outlet with cheap pasties (meat, vegetable and cheese pies). Well worth the calories.
The Oxford Cafe (in the Covered Market) serves salads, soups, sandwiches and pastries.
Midrange (£10 to £20):
The Prince of Wales (73 Church Way, Iffley; 44-1865-778554) offers excellent fish and chips and a good variety of ales.
The Trout (195 Godstow Road, Lower Wovercote; 44-1865-510930; thetroutoxford.co.uk)
is a classic English pub with outdoor seating overlooking the Thames.
You can get everything from fish and chips to complex vegetarian salads.
Aziz Restaurant (228-230 Cowley Road; 44-1865-794945; aziz.uk.com) serves rustic Bangladeshi and Indian food.
The Magdalen Arms (243 Iffley Road; 44-1865-243159; magdalenarms.com) is said by many to serve the best pub food in Oxford.
Pricey (starting around £20):
Brasserie Blanc (71-72 Walton Street; 44-1865-510999; brasserieblanc.com)
in the heart of the Jericho neighborhood, has very good, if not
particularly distinctive, French-Continental food. This large, simply
appointed restaurant is popular with students whose parents are
visiting, and is one of many restaurants in Raymond Blanc’s Brasserie
Blanc empire.
WHERE TO STAY
The Tree Hotel at Iffley (63 Church Way; iffley.treehotel.co.uk),
about two miles from Oxford’s center, is a small hotel with single,
double and “family” size rooms with plain but comfortable furnishings.
Breakfast in the pub dining room downstairs is included. According to
the hotel’s website, rooms start at about £93 in April.
Malmaison Oxford (3 New Road, in the Oxford Castle and prison complex;malmaison.com/locations/oxford)
has a high-end bar, restaurant and spa as well as luxuriously outfitted
guest rooms in what were, until not that long ago, locked cells. Sleek
and stylish, if slightly spooky. Rates start at £155 in April.
JENNIFER MOSES
is a writer and painter. She is the author, most recently, of “Tales
From My Closet” (Scholastic), a young adult novel.重新發現文學、藝術與電影中的牛津
探索2014年05月26日
英格蘭牛津風光（從左上圖開始逆時針方向）：小城中心的風景；格斯陶修道院遺址；穀物市場大街；牛津海峽上的船隻。Scenes From Oxford, England Clockwise from top left: View from the center of town; remains of Godstow Abbey; Cornmarket Street; boats on Oxford Canal.
Andrew Testa for The New York Times
去年10月底，當我啟程與丈夫團聚時——他是一位法學教授，在牛津
休年假——我以為自己很清楚會見到什麼，因為對於牛津，這座英格蘭中南部美不勝收的中世紀小城，我讀過許多書，看過許多以它為背景的電影。伊夫琳·沃
(Evelyn Waugh)在他1945年的著作《舊地重遊》 (Brideshead Revisited)
中悉心刻畫了貴族統治與特權的誘惑，因此我早有準備，以為會在基督教會學院見到優雅的大學生帶着香檳在開闊的草地上野餐。柯林·德克斯特(Colin
Dexter)的《摩斯警長》(Inspector
Morse)系列提醒我會有被死屍絆倒的風險（小說與電視劇皆如此）。而最近的電影《成長教育》(An
Education)的最後部分則讓我有所準備，以為會見到成群的學生騎車上學，或是去進行DNA分析，或是去學習小乘佛教的儀式語言。
的確，有不計其數的文學與電影作品從牛津獲得了靈感，原因不言而
喻：這個地方彷彿一件層次無窮的甜點，蘊含著歷史、志向、抱負、格調、典雅、渴望、財富、貿易與一切詩情畫意，包括許多詩才橫溢的學生與真正的詩人，比如
菲利普·拉金(Philip Larkin)、W. H.奧登(W. H. Auden)和約翰·貝傑曼(John
Betjeman)。但是，這也是一座勞工之城，許多人的工作與高尚的語言毫無關聯——儘管19世紀詩人與文學批評家馬修·阿諾德(Matthew
Arnold)眼中的風光而今依然如舊：「這座甜蜜之城遍布夢幻的尖塔/它的美麗，不需要六月的張揚……」
也許俯瞰整個牛津小城的最佳地點是聖瑪麗大學教堂頂部。這座教堂有
着14世紀的尖塔，坐落在小城正中間高街的拉德克里夫廣場上，位置恰到好處。從這裡向下望，四面風光一覽無餘：小城位於泰晤士河谷，銀白如練的小河（本地
人也將它稱作彩虹女神「伊西斯」，特別是艄公們）、富力橋旁最早的「牛津港」遺址、鐵路、花園、草地、水道，當然還有38座獨立的學院。它們有着各自的四
方院落、門房、高塔與壯麗的正門，這一切，共同構成了牛津大學。
是的，牛津大學到處都是，這個理由足以讓牛津小城存在，因為如果沒
有牛津大學（最初是一片中世紀修道院建築群，然後演化為「學院樓」，後來誕生了最初的幾所大學），就不會有城牆（驚鴻一瞥中，偶爾還能見到它們的殘跡），
沒有商業街、沒有維多利亞風格的華麗尖塔與山牆，當然，更不會有酒吧，不會有三五成群的騎行客在曲折的路上呼嘯而來，趕着去聆聽下一場學術報告。
人們也不會如此困惑不解（至少美國人多持這種態度），牛津大學究竟
是什麼？畢竟，牛津大學（以及與之關係密切的劍橋大學）與其他大學不同，它的運作建在一套錯綜複雜的體系之上，它包含許多獨立的學院，卻又聚而為一，構成
一所綜合大學。事實上，這個體系如此複雜，如此的「狀態驅動」，對於我這樣的殖民地居民來說，要窮盡一生才能真正看懂。
但僅僅因為我是局外人，並不意味着這個地方不願向我敞開探索的大門。那僅僅意味着我需要自備動力，特別是配有擋泥板的堅固的三速單車，那是我從考利路上的一家店裡租來的。
我在牛津的悠閑旅行從伊芙利村開始，儘管它未必是啟程的最佳地點。
過去，這裡一度是個獨立的行政實體，但現在劃歸城市邊界之內。我想知道牛津在成為牛津大學的同義詞之前是什麼模樣，而伊芙利恰恰滿足了我的心愿。此地有許
多典型的磚木結構英倫小屋，屋頂覆以茅草，名字往往叫五穀村舍或麥芽屋。村中還有經曆數百年滄桑的石牆、田野、白鵝、蜿蜒的小徑和維多利亞時代晚期的排屋
公寓。
走在伊芙利村任何一條小巷、任何一片草地上，你都可以想像自己正置
身於中世紀的牛津，城中心堡壘森嚴，周圍是水霧瀰漫的濕地，過去，那裡曾是泰晤士河與查韋爾河匯聚之處。古時候的牛津城是四通八達的貿易樞紐，直到現在，
城中心還有一座卡法克斯塔（卡法克斯源於法語carrefour，意為十字路口），從泰晤士河向山上步行五分鐘即可到達。
如果只想追尋後諾爾曼征服時期的遺迹，僅聖瑪麗教堂就值得你來伊芙
利村。該教堂坐落於一片古老的墓園中央，至今仍在頻繁使用，每個禮拜日上午，教堂內都座無虛席。教堂負責人名單很長，最早可追溯到1170年的奧利弗。教
堂內有獨創的方形石頭洗禮盤，發掘於本地採石場的石頭支撐着巍峨的屋頂。聖瑪麗教堂就是那種地方，讓你嘆為觀止，瞬間陷入聖潔的沉默。
港口草地上的一匹馬。
Andrew Testa for The New York Times
你可以在教堂路上的威爾士親王(Prince of
Wales)酒吧喝杯酒，吃點炸魚和薯片（這座老派酒吧對狗狗與兒童非常友好，是我先生最愛的地方），或者如果你願意餓着肚子等待，可以到泰晤士河對面伊
芙利水閘高處的十字路口，沿着纖道向上遊方向走一段，即可來到伊西斯農舍(Isis
Farmhouse)餐廳。這家紅火的酒家供應基本的酒吧美食——砂鍋菜、馬鈴薯泥、烤肉、燉肉與家常烘焙食品，餐廳內的餐桌旁有壁爐，室外的席位則可俯
瞰流水。如果你運氣好，可以見到大學划艇隊正在刻苦訓練。視野內亦有野鴨與天鵝，屋船停泊在岸邊。根據季節不同，周圍的風景或是細雨蒙蒙，或是野花爛漫。
來到這裡時正值深秋，我別無選擇：如果我想騎車閑逛，必須準備好應對潮濕的天氣。畢竟，一點兒小雨有什麼可怕的？你會留意到本地人似乎從不為此煩惱，他們在任何天氣里都可以深一腳淺一腳地出門溜達，狗狗歡快地跑在前面，人們腳上的長筒雨靴上都是泥。
這就是英勇無畏的英國人。沿着泰晤士河岸逆流而上，走到更遠的地
方，牛津城中心的西北方向便是遼闊的港口草地。一千多年前，它已經開始用於放牧，直到今天，草地上的馬和牛仍然遠比人多。你可以在草地上徜徉，或者繼續沿
着步道向前騎行，走過小橋，路過船庫，穿過一道又一道大門，如果你足夠勇敢，那就沿着左邊的路一直向前走，來到濱色村(Binsey)，這裡有一口蜜井
(Treacle Well)，《愛麗絲漫遊仙境》(Alice』s Adventures in Wonderland)中那隻榛睡鼠曾經描述過。
再往前走，就是綠草如茵的中世紀名勝格斯陶修道院(Godstow
Abbey)，我在這裡停下腳步浮想聯翩，想像裡面一定有許多本篤會修女。接下來，我終於來到摩斯警長最愛的酒吧——伍爾夫科特的Trout酒吧，坐在河
邊露台上熱氣蒸騰的大傘下吃熱巧克力和素餡餅，一如既往地欣賞野鴨、白鵝以及堅持在周末出遊的人們。
吃完以後，發現樹影已經漸漸長了，我沒有原路返回，而是從河流東岸
回到小城，一開始還在路上，後來就沿着長長的運河往前走。這條運河基本上與伍德斯托克路平行，將牛津的北部街區與幾公頃的濕潤草地分隔開來，由此我得以見
到一些別樣的風景——花園、小巷與陡直的運河岸邊房屋。
對於那些打算穿着時尚鞋子旅行的潮流人士，我要提醒一句：想都別
想。因為在牛津，鞋子的唯一功能就是走路：你需要穿過蜿蜒曲折的街道，踏過鵝卵石，爬上堡壘上的城垛，踩過各種地形的步道，包括運河邊78英里長的纖道，
這條運河過去曾是英格蘭中西部各郡與倫敦之間的貿易紐帶。（這段運河是總長2000英里的「運河與河流」機構的組成部分）。而今，運河成了北牛津傑里科地
帶的西部邊界，在《無名的裘德》(Jude the
Obscure)一書中，裘德的三個孩子就在傑里科遭遇了可怕的結局。那時這片地帶還位於城牆之外，如今已是牛津郡最時尚的街區之一，一天晚上，我和丈夫
在新穎別緻的布拉塞利·布蘭科餐廳享受了一頓美餐，周圍的顧客多數是大學生以及他們的父母。
莫頓大學附近的運動場。
Andrew Testa for The New York Times
19世紀，牛津大學出版社在貫穿南北的沃爾頓大街上不斷擴張，就像
某種非凡的靈獸展開了翅膀，傑里科街區也隨之湧現出許多咖啡館、書店和優雅的維多利亞與愛德華時代風格住宅區，還有其他風格——新喬治、後哥特，藝術與工
藝品也點綴其中。但在大約224年前運河開通時，這裡還是一片瘟疫與赤貧肆虐的地方，工人一般都住在「兩上兩下」的房屋（兩層小樓，樓下兩間房屋，樓上兩
個卧室）里，這種建築在克拉漢姆街上仍可見到，但今天，住在裡面的更可能是大學教授或出版商，而非勞工。
如果你頗有興緻，想走訪更多維多利亞時期的窮街陋巷，沒有什麼地方
比奧斯尼小島更合適了。它位於河岸附近，狹窄的河汊將它與牛津其他區域分隔開來。從城中心出發，步行15分鐘即到。它是19世紀中葉為鐵路工人而建的，而
今，奧斯尼島上依着原來的街道規劃布局，遍布整齊的兩層平台式村舍，這裡的每一寸空間的價格每年都在漲。
我喜歡的另一個街區（部分是因為喜歡那裡廉價的民族風味餐館）是牛
津城東南部的考利(Cowley)。它距離卡法克斯只有一英里左右，你會發現一片風格各異的社區，大部分是小巧的20世紀早期的房子，當年是為中低階層及
手工業者而建。那時，威廉莫里斯有限公司開始在昔日的牛津軍事學院校址內大規模生產汽車，而工廠舊址就在考利的牛津環路邊上，由此將城市分兩個部分，如今
依舊（由此還催生了一句俗語：「牛津就是考利的左岸」）。這裡店鋪林立，兜售的東西應有盡有，包括波蘭和清真特色美食以及教會服裝（誰知道呢，也許你哪天
會需要一套教士袍或者祭司的聖衣），當然，也有無數酒吧。
然後，就是牛津中心最輝煌的美景，這裡遍布有圍牆的花園和沒有圍牆
的大學、中世紀街道、古代教堂、絢麗的街景、音樂、博物館、圖書館與報告廳。這裡的植物園是英國最古老的一座，逛一遍就要花費一整天，甚至在11月它都有
這麼多東西令我迷醉：香草、大麗花、琴柱草、英國紫杉和一種叫做「紫色灌木」的東西。
奇珍異寶？牛津當然有，從阿什莫林博物館開始遊覽吧。這家博物館最讓我喜歡的有以下幾點：1. 免費入場。2. 只需1英鎊押金，就可以在樓下的儲物櫃存包，用完後把鑰匙交回，就可拿回押金。3. 博物館不大不小，逛完之後不需要花費太多時間回味。4. 展品豐富。
波德琳圖書館的閱覽室。
Andrew Testa for The New York Times
這裡的展品真讓人大開眼界啊！有牛津大學基督聖體學院克倫威爾時期
秘藏的金銀餐具，也有當代藝術與前拉斐爾派的作品。你站在那裡目不暇接，簡直不知道該從哪裡開始看。我的視覺之旅從二樓的一間東方畫廊開始，它展示了現代
化之初東西方貿易之路暢通之後如何引發了一場文化大爆發。但當我信步走進另一個房間抬頭一望，裡面的英國陶瓷展立即鎮住了我，我像一隻面對雪亮車燈的小鹿
那樣目瞪口呆。這是一片下午茶的奇幻仙境，陳列着幾乎一切種類的英倫樣式與杯盤，它們都精心設計，裝飾以栩栩如生的實物大小的彩繪玫瑰、燦爛奪目的玫瑰金
及淡黃色的寶石、蝴蝶、蜿蜒的葡萄藤和飛鳥。展品還有很多，太多太多了，包括來自日本、中國、意大利、荷蘭的餐具，代爾夫特陶器，希臘與羅馬雕塑，各種織
物以及一整間屋的法國印象派大師畢沙羅(Pissarro)及其後代的作品。
走出阿什莫林博物館的大門，幾步路之外就是你想在牛津見到的一切，
包括布萊克威爾書店(Blackwell』s)。它位於布羅德街51號，大概是英國最有名的書店了，書的品種極為豐富（包括新書與二手書）。從那裡出來，
三步並作兩步，你就到了牛津大學的波德琳圖書館，與我以前去過的大學圖書館相比，此地大異其趣。它建於1488年，位於波德琳學院最初的核心位置，正因如
此，這所大學的第一座教室與周圍的清修院相比，似乎遺世獨立。在裝飾着400多座人物雕像的穹頂天花板下，教授會向神學院的學生提出這樣的問題：「天堂里
住着多少位天使？」樓上則是漢法利公爵圖書館(Duke Humfrey』s
Library)，比波德琳圖書館較晚些時候增建，牛津大學最早的藏書都深鎖其間。暢銷的機場平裝書不用鎖，但那些由作者獨立寫成的古老而脆薄的沉重手稿
以及最初的羊皮包邊的古籍則用鏈子固定在牆上（散客需要組團才能進入參觀）。
哈利波特系列電影的一些關鍵場景就在這裡拍攝而成，但如果你尋找的
是更為現代的東西，可以穿過院落，去往拉德克里夫圖書館(Radcliffe
Camera)。這是一座環形的古典建築，對公眾關閉，但對學生開放。如今，學生們恐怕像研究但丁一樣認真地關注着自己的Facebook，但無所謂啦。
大學裡彷彿有永無止境的音樂、戲劇、舞蹈、電影和報告需要他們參加，更別說基督大教堂和各種大學禮拜堂內的晚禱。oxfordcityguide.com是品嘗文化盛宴的好網站。
從拉德克里夫圖書館望出去，周圍就是牛津，矗立着無數夢幻般的尖
塔。古老的學院起伏林立，各自以圍牆隔開，彼此之間用錯綜複雜的道路網連接。學院多數不對遊客開放，但我們可以透過拱形的大門、圍牆和樹籬窺到一點風光。
至於基督教會學院(Christ Church college)，只要買票即可進入。
說起基督教會學院，它的身影也曾出現在哈利波特電影中，比如，當哈
利和其他未來的學徒初次來到霍格沃茲魔法學校時，麥格教授歡迎他們的到來，她所站立的位置就是通向大禮堂的那道16世紀的樓梯。此外，學院美麗的大教堂內
裝飾着美不勝收的彩色玻璃窗，包括19世紀由愛德華·波尼-瓊斯(Edward Burne-Jones)創建的聖弗萊絲史懷德(St.
Frideswide)之窗（弗萊絲史懷德是牛津的守護聖人）。
拉德克里夫廣場，中心是環形的拉德克里夫圖書館。
Andrew Testa for The New York Times
沿着這條路（沿路的標識都很清晰）一直走到皮特·里夫斯(Pitt
Rivers)
博物館，這裡陳列的藝術品豐富多彩，讓人眼花繚亂。它的得名並非源於某條河，而是源於一位陸軍中將，他在1884年創辦了這座博物館，然後把自己的人類學
收藏品放在這裡，按主題排列，換言之，是以類別而非起源或年代排列。今天，這些物品的總數有50萬件左右。所以，如果你對某些東西有濃厚的興趣，比如非
洲、美拉尼西亞和北美洲的面具，印第安黑腳族和大草原印第安人的襯衣，全球各地的樂器，或者詹姆斯·庫克船長第二次太平洋大發現之旅的戰利品，可以來這裡
看看。大部分展品都陳列在大玻璃櫃中逐級上升的全景式陳列台上。沒錯，你真是來對地方了。
回到這片棋子般完美的樂園，問問自己，下一站將是什麼？答案或許是
牛津博物館，那座有趣的小屋位於聖阿爾達特大街上建於維多利亞晚期的市政廳內。一系列地圖向你明確展示諾爾曼人入侵之前的公元900年左右，牛津是如何在
泥沼、濕地和河流上建造而成，又是如何演進發展直至今日的。
我感覺自己對極其遠古的時代了解得還不夠多，就去了古老的牛津城堡
遊覽。它稍微有些做作，但的確迷人。那是個怪異的地方，一部分是建於11世紀的高塔，當時的目的是幫助征服者威廉統治這片地區，一部分則是廢棄的監獄，中
間一片寬闊的草坡。大部分古堡都在英國內戰中損毀，但你仍然可以感受它當年的壯麗、寬敞與森嚴。而今，昔日的監獄多已經改建為奢華的瑪爾曼森酒店，牢房成
了客房。
因此，究竟什麼以及何處才是真正的牛津？是購物中心區穀物市場中
Pret a
Manger那中世紀的抹灰籬笆牆和木結構屋？還是附近的蓋普和馬克斯與斯潘塞店？連綿無盡的綠地？大街兩旁箱籠般的排屋？傑里科優雅而華麗的屋宇？泊在
運河邊的水上人家？伊西斯河上的艄公？酒屋？圖書館？講堂？
對我來說，更加緊迫的問題是：如果塞巴斯蒂安·福萊特(Sebastian Flyte)和他的泰迪熊阿洛伊希烏斯真有靈魂的話，他們會在哪裡呢？
於是，我在牛津的最後一天里，腦海里揮之不去電影《舊地重遊》中英
俊多金、醉生夢死的主人公塞巴斯蒂安的身影。在我遊玩時，塞巴斯蒂安或許會與最好的朋友查爾斯·里德(Charles
Ryder)閑坐於11月灰色的天空下基督教會學院的草地上。我的右邊，牛群啃着青草；我的身後，騎車的少年穿行於聖阿爾德特大街的車流中；而圍牆惹人焦
急的另一側，大學裡的尖頂、高塔、大門與教堂，在淡淡的暮色中閃閃發光。
餐飲
廉價（3至8英鎊，或者大約5至13美元。1英鎊約合1.63美元）
West Cornwall Pasty Company（地址：5 Cornmarket Street; westcornwallpasty.co.uk）是一家快餐店，供應物美價廉的糕點（肉、蔬菜和奶酪餡餅）。高卡路里的食物真是物有所值。
The Oxford Cafe（位於Covered Market內）供應沙拉、湯、三明治和糕點。
中檔（10至20英鎊）：
The Prince of Wales（地址：73 Church Way, Iffley; 44-1865-778554）供應優質的炸魚、薯片和種類齊全的麥芽酒。
The Trout（地址：195 Godstow Road, Lower Wovercote; 44-1865-510930; thetroutoxford.co.uk）經典的英倫酒吧，有露天席位俯瞰泰晤士河。你可以享受到各種美味，從魚、薯片到豐盛的蔬菜沙拉，應有盡有。
Aziz Restaurant（地址：228-230 Cowley Road; 44-1865-794945; aziz.uk.com）供應鄉村風味的孟加拉及印度美食。
The Magdalen Arms（地址：243 Iffley Road; 44-1865-243159; magdalenarms.com）供應的酒吧美食是牛津最好的，許多人都這麼說。
高檔（20英鎊起）:
Brasserie Blanc（地址：71-72 Walton Street; 44-1865-510999; brasserieblanc.com）位於Jericho 街區中心地帶，供應法蘭西歐陸風味菜肴，雖然不算獨特，但口味極佳。這家寬敞明亮的餐廳訂位很容易，顧客多是那些偕同父母旅行的學生。它是Raymond Blanc的Brasserie Blanc餐廳帝國旗下眾多餐館中的一個。
住宿
The Tree Hotel at Iffley （地址：63 Church Way; iffley.treehotel.co.uk）這家酒店距離牛津城中心大約2英里，客房有單人間、雙人間及家庭套房，傢具樸素卻安逸舒適。含早餐（餐廳在樓下）。根據酒店的網站信息，4月份的客房價格大概93英鎊起。
Malmaison Oxford（地址：3 New Road, 位於牛津城堡與監獄區之間; malmaison.com/locations/oxford）有高端酒吧、餐館和水療館，奢華的客房設施齊全，不久以前，這些房間都曾是門窗緊鎖的牢房。風格華麗時尚，或許略嫌陰森。4月份的客房價格155英鎊起。
本文作者JENNIFER MOSES是一位作家兼畫家。她是最近一部青少年小說《我的櫃中故事（學院版）》(Tales\rFrom My Closet)的作者。本文最初發表於2014年3月23日。
翻譯：蘭珩
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