Oxford History Tours

09/10/2026

Winter events coming up at the Bodleian soon.

https://updates.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/cr/AQjNhhYQwu63Ahj-8KxnMOe8tgq3kKYSm_FjS8q7v_SBhK2jklwEksHR48XdwYrbknXNxw

Why not have an Oxford History Tour while you are in town.

Immerse yourself in world-famous gothic architecture and celebrate the spooky season like never before: join us for Halloween Film Screenings inside the Divinity School! Across 3 days, we'll be screening Monsters Inc. (family-friendly), Beetlejuice (12A) and Bram Stoker's Dracula (18+).

04/10/2026

Oh interesting.

William Morris and pre -Raphaelite chums exhibition at the Other Place.

🥀 On this day in 1896, iconic British designer, writer and activist William Morris died aged 62.

This striking portrait is based on a photograph first published in 1884. Widely reproduced as a print, it became one of the best-known images of Morris.

📖 The woodcut was later published in printmaker Robert Bryden’s 'Portraits of Men of Letters' (1899), alongside portraits of fellow writers and thinkers including John Ruskin, Robert Browning and Walt Whitman.

🎨 Want to see more of Morris? We're counting down the days until the doors open on ’A Call to Art: William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites'.

⚡ Our new exhibition brings together paintings, drawings, textiles, ceramics and rarely seen works from our collection, offering a fresh perspective on one of the world’s most influential thinkers on art, craft and design.

💫 ’A Call to Art: William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites’
Opening 23 October 2026

🔗 Visit our website to book your tickets: https://bit.ly/4pvqN7R

🖼️ Robert Bryden, after a photograph by Frederick Hollyer​, William Morris. Woodcut on paper, around 1899. Photo © the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge.

28/09/2026

Patinas

Here is an example of the beautiful patina that stone develops when it is left to the natural effects of wind and rain. There is always the dilemma: to sandblast or not to sandblast? Sometimes the history written into the stone is far more beautiful than anything we could restore.

A new college food choice for religion, university, Harry Potter and frankly any tour. It offers so much to see.

24/09/2026

It's very exciting learning more about the Divinity Ceiling's awe inspiring carved bosses.

Here is a lovely new discovery by expert Duncan Taylor

22/09/2026

Autumns festival of Song

Another opportunity to hear extraordinary music in extraordinary places.

The Oxford Festival is the focal point of Oxford Lieder’s year, presenting more than 50 concerts and dozens of other events celebrating the unique art…

22/09/2026

News from Westminster Abbey. Tolkien is to be honoured in Poets’ Corner, alongside his close friend C.S. Lewis.

The new memorial, to be unveiled in 2027, is inspired by Tolkien’s beautiful ‘Tree of Tales’ and will even incorporate a piece of the black pine from Oxford that Tolkien loved.

spent so much of his life in Oxford, teaching Old and Middle English and Old Norse while creating the extraordinary worlds of Middle-earth.

Fitting considering Tolkien's love of trees, languages, stories and ancient literature being remembered in this way. And beside .S.Lewis.

A homage to literature at Westminster Abbey.

A major new memorial celebrating Tolkien’s creative vision and storytelling by artist Stephen Broadbent will be revealed at a dedication ceremony in Spring 2027.

21/09/2026

Oxford colleges offer some subjects but not others?

It’s largely down to the academics who make up the college.

Whether a college can offer a subject at undergraduate level often depends on whether it has an appropriate Tutorial Fellow or tutor in that field.

At Balliol, for example, the Open Day programme covers everything from History, Classics and Modern Languages to Chemistry, Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science.

The lectures and examinations are organised by the University’s departments and faculties, while in college tutors and Fellows provide small-group tutorial teaching. One of the distinctive features of an Oxbridge education.

Try the architectural and historical highlights to full in the gaps

20/09/2026

Happily spotted this on my three-hour C.S. Lewis tour allows a trip to Lewis's home and Parish church a short drive from the city centre.

A great choice for a group of friends travelling together wishing to come up to Oxford from London. They were home in time for tea.

An opportunity to follow in Lewis’s footsteps and learn tales of his friendships and inspirations.

Back in Oxford the medieval colleges, ancient streets, pubs, libraries and quiet corners that became part of the world behind some of the most enduring writers of the twentieth century.

Inklings

20/09/2026

A three-hour C.S. Lewis tour allows a trip to Lewis's home and Parish church a short drive from the city centre.

A great choice for a group of friends travelling together wishing to come up to Oxford from London. They were home in time for tea.

An opportunity to follow in Lewis’s footsteps and learn tales of his friendships and inspirations.

Back in Oxford the medieval colleges, ancient streets, pubs, libraries and quiet corners that became part of the world behind some of the most enduring writers of the twentieth century.

Inklings