July 11 – Oxford to Southampton, England. Today we leave for Southampton but not until 2pm. This morning Diana said that there were some things we hadn't seen that she wanted to visit and that was my plan too so after a breakfast at the hotel, off we went.
Diana said she hadn't seen Hertford Bridge (aka Bridge of Sighs. The famous prisoner bridge in Venice that connected the Doge's Palace and the prison. Convicted criminals would get their last glimpse of the free world through a window in the bridge as they were taken from the trial rooms to the prison across the bridge. It's said they all sighed, thus the name.). It connects two buildings across New College Lane at the upper end of Broad Street. Easy to find and very close.
We walked across Martyrs' Square to Broad Street and then past Bailiol and Trinity Colleges, the White Horse Pub and the Sheldonian Theater to the beginning of New College and there's Hertford Bridge. It's longer and has a lot more windows than its Venetian cousin but both are stone enclosed bridges over an arch, this one over a street the one in Venice over a canal. Similar, but not nearly the same.
From there we turned right onto Castle Street and walked past the Clarenoon Building and between the Schools Quad to Radcliffe Square and the Radcliffe Camera building. This place has been featured in at least 9 Morse episodes and shown either as background or in the intro or extro in at least half of them. It's one of the iconic buildings of the city. It's round. The first floor is grey stone set with thick mortar lines and keystone arches. The second floor is the golden limestone for which the city is famous. It has columns with Corinthian capitals, square windows and arched niches (all empty, as it's undergoing restoration). The second floor is topped with a balcony that extends all the way around the building. There's a stone railing with urns atop the main posts. The third story is set back about 15-20 feet to form this balcony. It's also golden limestone and has arch topped windows around its circumference. Atop this floor is another limestone railing, this time completely enclosed and with larger urns on the posts. Above this is a copper dome that has a cupola at its peak. A very unique building. It's currently closed because of the renovations taking place. I was having trouble getting a decent picture of it as the square is somewhat small but right next door is Saint Mary the Virgin Church and they will let you climb the church's tower for 4₤ and we were going there anyway so we moved it up on the list.
Saint Mary's is also called the New Church for reasons I was not able to discover. First we looked around the church, which has some very nice stained glass, most of it showing individuals and I could only identify a few of them. Maybe after more study I could get a few more. There's also a plaque giving all the names of the known martyrs of Oxford both Catholic and Protestant. From 1539 to 1681 there are 23 names on the plaque, none of whom are known to me.
We went into the bookshop and paid our entry fee to the tower. It starts out innocently enough with regular stairs for a couple of flights. Here you reach a wooden floor about 30% of the way up the tower. This is where the works for the clocks are located. We were lucky in that the clockmaker was there working on the mechanism and the cabinet was open. Of course, it's a huge clock. It was made by Thomas Paris of Warwick in 1741. Every part was made by hand. By heating, bending, sawing and hammering each gear, wheel, brace, axle was formed. Some parts appear to be iron others are obviously brass. The iron parts are painted black, the brass parts, mostly gears and cogs, are very shiny. There are three drums with cables on them leading down to the weights. The cables are steel now but I'm sure they were originally ropes. Each of these drums is wound using a large key. This raises the large weights, one for the clock movement, one for the chimes and one for the hour strikers. The clockmaker told me that there's a heavily reinforced floor near the base of the tower to catch the heavy weights if one of the ropes broke. That's not likely with the steel cables they use now. Paris was paid 100₤ for his work, about 9,000₤ ($13,500) in today's prices. Not much for all that work. A custom made clock today would cost way into the six figures.
There's another short flight of stairs around the clock works and then you wind up on a platform with a small door at one corner. That door leads to a very narrow spiral staircase, and I do mean narrow. No two-way traffic here it's either up or down. This stairway takes you up the next 70% of the tower. It seems like you are going in circles forever. At the top you come out on a very narrow balcony running around about seven-eighths of the tower. What a view you have! It's marvelous.
First thing I did was get a great shot of the Radcliffe Camera. You're about as high as the copper dome, maybe half way up it. From here you can see for quite a way and there are about 16 colleges you can identify. The best overall view is of All Souls College to the right of the Camera but Brasenose College to the left was not far behind. The views over Oxford are great. I'm pretty sure I knew this before but I was reminded of it while we were up among the gargoyles. Do you know the difference between a grotesque and a gargoyle? Both are somewhat bizarre beings but to qualify as a gargoyle the face or animal must be involved in the draining of rain water.
We had accomplished our objectives so it was back to the hotel to do the final packing and check out of the hotel. After that was done and the porters had moved our luggage to the lobby we just had enough time to sit in the Morse Bar, just off the lobby and have a drink in honor of the fictional Morse and his portrayer, John Thaw. John died not too long after filming the last Morse episode, That Remorseful Day, in which the character Morse has a heart attack while walking in the Exeter College Quad.
The bar was used in several episodes of Morse and two pictures of John Thaw hang over the mantle. To the right of the fireplace on the wall is an oil portrait of Colin Dexter the author of the Morse books. He stays at the hotel when he's in town and he was here the day before we got in. During the filming of the series the guest stars and actors stayed here as did any townsfolk who were displaced by location shooting. Not bad.
We caught a taxi to the train station and hopped on the Southampton train and arrived there right on time. Another short taxi ride to the Holiday Inn, Southampton and we were set for the next two nights before we join the Queen Mary 2 for a short cruise to Norway and then the Transatlantic crossing home.
We always stay at the Southampton Holiday Inn. It's very close to the port and only a block from the old city wall and inside that the old part of town. This time we're staying two nights so that tomorrow we can see some of Southampton. As often as we've been here we've never done that.
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