Tag Archives: University Church of St. Mary

Tuesday Guided Tour

We started our Tuesday afternoon tour with Tony on the 13th of September at 2pm sharp. Our guide pointed out the bronze statue of a man on top of Exeter college and pointed out the idea that the statue is looking down at the martyr’s cross set in a circle of cobbles on Broad Street where the three protestants, Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley were burned at the stake. More about their history in a later post about these Martyrs. The Statue is by Anthony Gormley and installed in 2009. It is about 7feet tall.

 

We walked past the Sheldonian where on plinths between the railings are a series of Emperor heads, representing Roman emperors, or philosophers. Each one has a different beard. Christopher Wren is the architect of the Sheldonian and other buildings in Oxford. These heads were installed when the theater was built and then remodeled in 1868 and again in 1970’s. One of the heads has a wren chiseled in its hair in honor of Christopher Wren.

We walked to the back of the Sheldonian past the Bodlein and past the Bridge of Sighs and on to Radcliffe Camera and into University Church of St. Mary’s.

Some of the information and places we visited with our guide were already known to us but he had some other insider information that we gleaned from him.

After walking through the covered market we exited and went onto Turl Street back toward The High with the All Saint’s tower and steeple ahead of us. Once on High Street we continued on to St. Aldate’s to Christ Church College.

Tom Tower at Christ Church College is another architectural masterpiece by Christopher Wren. This school was founded by Cardinal Wolsey in 1525 with its entrance embellished through the addition of Tom Tower, designed by Wren, in 1680. Great Tom, the bell from Osney Abbey, strikes 101 times at 21:05 each evening: the number represents the 100 students of Henry VIII’s foundation plus an additional place funded later; 21:05 signals the student curfew according to Oxford time, which is five minutes behind Greenwich Mean Time.

We would take a tour of Christ Church College on the following day, Wednesday September 14th.

We walked along the Broad Walk through part of the school campus and on to Merton Grove.

We caught a glimpse of the Christ Church College Cathedral through the iron gate along Merton Grove. This is the only cathedral in Oxford and it’s the smallest cathedral in the U.K. Sadly, the cathedral was closed during the mourning period of the Queen and we were not able to go inside to see it.

Dear and Tony our guide ahead of me and to the right is the tower at Merton college.

We are on Merton Street now and this is the front of Merton College Chapel.

Merton college was founded in 1264 by William de Merton, Lord Chancellor to Henry III, the oldest college in Oxford.

Above, between the statues of Edward I and the founder is a relief of a book, the Lamb of God opposite de Merton kneeling in prayer, flanked by John the Baptist and a unicorn.

J.R.R. Tolkien was an alumni of this college. We tried to get into Merton and Exeter Colleges but both were closed on the days we tried, sadly.

We turned off Merton Street onto Logic Lane.

We were drawn to the Martlets on this crest since Dear’s family crest includes these birds.

A martlet in English heraldry is a mythical bird without feet that never roosts from the moment of its drop-birth until its death fall; martlets are proposed to be continuously on the wing.

Off Logic Lane we are back on the High. We cross the street to Queen’s Lane.

Our guide pointed out The Grand Cafe which we never made it to and another cafe across the street that both claim to be the site of the first coffee house in England.

Onto Queen’s Lane past Queen’s College we turn onto New College Lane.

We see the entrance to New College, one of the colleges we did get into on the following day, and continue on to the end of our tour where we are left off at the Bridge of Sighs at the passageway to The Turf Tavern.

By this time after our 2-1/2 hour tour we are ready to quench our thirst. We say goodbye to Tony and hello to the Turf Tavern. We packed a lot of walking and touring on our first full day in Oxford.

Congratulations if you made it through this long post.

Back to the present, a Happy Thanksgiving Day to our Canadian neighbors and Happy Columbus Day here in the USA. 

Oxford Morning

On our first morning in Oxford, September 13th, we went out early to have breakfast at Brown’s Cafe in the Covered Market.

Our first Full English without the beans. We tried the fried bread instead of toast…never again. It tasted like some bad fried food at a Fair.

On the way to the Bodlein to get tickets for a tour we strolled around the Radcliffe Camera and The University Church of St. Mary. Early morning was a good time to be there before more foot traffic started.

 

University Church of St Mary the Virgin

From its beginnings over a thousand years ago, St Mary’s has witnessed the foundation of the University of Oxford and some of the most significant events in English church history.

Fellows of Oxford Colleges were regularly invited to preach at the church in the 18th Century – in the case of John Wesley, on three occasions.

Wesley’s years in Georgia, subsequent conversion experience and new found energy to spread the Gospel to all who would hear, had by 1741, distanced him from Oxford both physically and spiritually.

In 1741 he returned planning to deliver a condemnatory sermon at St Mary’s but was persuaded by a friend to substitute this criticism of Oxford’s lack of godliness for the sermon on the ‘almost Christian’, which he preached on 25th July 1741.

No such restraint applied in 1744 when towards the end of his sermon on ‘Scriptural Christianity’ he made a powerful attack on the University’s spiritual apathy. Not surprisingly, Wesley was not invited to give the University sermon again.

Indeed, he recognized that effect his sermon might have reflecting: “I preached I suppose the last time at St Mary’s. Be it so…. I have fully delivered my own soul.”

This time around I didn’t take photos inside the church because during the Mourning Period for Queen Elizabeth II most churches and cathedrals requested that visits were limited to signing of condolences. Many of the College chapels were closed during this period. On our visit in 2014, photos from the indoor of the church can be seen here.

These photos are from the High Street entrance to the University Church of St. Mary.

After our tour at Bodlein (which requires it’s own post) we returned to the Covered Market to M. Feller & Daughter traditional butcher to buy some lamb sausages, bacon, and a half dozen eggs. Then we made a stop at Sainsbury Grocery store for tomatoes, mushrooms, butter and other goodies to have at the apartment so we could make our own breakfast.

We took everything back to the apartment and regrouped to meet a tour guide for a 2-1/2 hour tour on Tuesday afternoon.

Back to the USA and Colville we are getting more in sync with the Pacific Time Zone.

Keeping Florida friends in our prayers!

Oxford Archives ~ University Church of St. Mary…

Oxford Day 6 046St Mary’s stands in the physical centre of the old walled City, and the university grew up around it. In medieval times scholars lived in houses with their teachers and the university had no buildings of its own, so it adopted St Mary’s as its centre. The church continued as a parish church, but by the early 13th century it had become the seat of university government, academic disputation, and the awarding of degrees.

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Oxford Day 6 120The Oxford Martyrs ~Each of the three anglican bishops, Latimer, Ridley and Cranmer, who were burnt at the stake in Oxford during the reign of the Roman Catholic queen, ‘Bloody Mary’, underwent part of his trial in St Mary’s. Their principal crime was not to believe the doctrine of transsubstantiation, although Cranmer, as Henry VIII’s Archbishop, had also played a crucial role in the downfall of Queen Mary’s mother, Catherine of Aragon.

Oxford Day 6 118This bit of history at St Mary’s really was interesting to me to read…

John Wesley, founder of Methodism, often attended the University Sermon in his Oxford days, and subsequently, as a Fellow of Lincoln College, preached some of his most stirring sermons before the University here – notably the famous sermon the ‘Almost Christian’ in 1741. In 1744, again in St Mary’s, he denounced the laxity and sloth of the senior members of the University. He was never asked to preach here again. ‘I have preached, I suppose,’ I wrote, ‘the last time in St Mary’s. Be it so. I am now clear of the blood of these men. I have fully delivered my soul.’

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In 1947 a disastrous fire destroyed the original 17th-century ‘Father’ Smith organ. Its replacement, by J W Walker, had become unplayable by 1981. The present organ, the third, was built in 1987 by Metzler Orgelbau of Zurich with the intention of recapturing the spirit of the original ‘Father’ Smith. It is undoubtedly one of the finest instruments of its kind, and incorporates the few of Smith’s decorative pipeshades which survived the fire.
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Oxford Day 6 121While traveling I never have the time to thoroughly study the history of the places we visit. In preparing my posts for my blog, after the fact, I learn so much more information and history and I find out all the things I missed while visiting these amazing places. That’s why I always am ready for another trip to see the things I missed. There’s only so much my brain can absorb in a short visit.
And now in the present I’m glad to be reading this posts from 2014 and knowing what we didn’t know the last time we visited. This time around I’m taking more time to research before we go.