Travel England Exploring Oxford About Trinity and Exeter colleges
On Broad Street, the classical heads that shield the Sheldonian continue along the front of the modest History of Science Museum
(Tues-Sat noon-4pm; free), where microscopes and early calculators are
immaculately displayed alongside Islamic and European astrolabes.
Across the street, Trinity College (daily 10.30am-noon &
2-4pm; £2; tel 01865/279900) sits back from the road behind trim
gardens, its attractive ensemble of old stone buildings begun at the
end of the seventeenth century. The expansive Front Quad holds the college's architectural pride and joy, its Chapel
, where Grinling Gibbons did some of his finest carving - a distinctive
performance, with cherubs' heads peering out from delicate foliage.
Recent alumni include Richard Burton, Terence Rattigan and the Labour
Party politician, Anthony Crosland.
From the south side of Broad Street, take Turl Street and you'll soon reach the entrance to Exeter College
(daily: term-time 2-5pm; otherwise 10am-5pm; free; tel 01865/279600),
another medieval foundation whose original buildings were chopped about
in the nineteenth century. On this occasion, however, the Victorians
did create something of interest in the elaborate, neo-Gothic Chapel
, whose intricate, almost fussy detail was conceived by Sir Gilbert
Scott in the 1850s. The chapel contains a superb Pre-Raphaelite
tapestry, the Adoration of the Magi , a fine collaboration
between William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones. Morris and Burne-Jones were both
students here, as were J.R.R. Tolkien, Alan Bennett and Imogen Stubbs.
Near the west end of Broad Street, the Oxford Story
(daily: April-June, Sept & Oct 9.30am-5pm; July & Aug
9.30am-5.30pm; Nov-March Mon-Fri 10am-4.30pm, Sat & Sun 10am-5pm;
£6) is a purpose-built tourist attraction devoted to the history of the
city and its university. It begins with an audio-visual display on
university life and thereafter you hop on a "time-car", which moves
through a series of historical dioramas; the same people designed the
Jorvik Viking Centre in York.
Broad Street leads into the pedestrianized Cornmarket , a busy shopping strip lined by major stores that cuts back to the
Carfax.
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