Preparations: Part One
When I learnt that the Bodleian Libraries were going to organize an all Tolkien exhibition, providing an opportunity to see his manuscripts and other personal items, as comes only once in a generation, I was strongly tempted to go. However, there were two problems. One of them was that I live in Slovakia while the exhibition was to take place in Oxford, England; so naturally, I questioned whether it would be worth the travel. I didn’t want to miss out on this one, for who knows when again in the future a similar exhibition may occur. The Tolkien Society website announced that the last time the materials to be gathered there were seen together, was during Tolkien’s life; and he had already inhabited the Halls of Mandos for 45 years. If the next exhibition dedicated to his life and work was to take pace in as many years, I may not live to see it. So, I decided I had to see it now. Also, it would be a great chance to visit the places he lived, Oxford and the nearby Birmingham. I could take a week off and go for a Tolkien-inspired sight-seeing holiday.
But that led to my second problem: there was nobody to go with. Almost none of my friends were as big a fan of Tolkien as I am, and those who were were too busy to come. I didn’t want to go on my own, since this was to be my first holiday (or travel of any kind) without my parents, and my family were scared to let me go abroad alone. To be honest, I too was a little doubtful as to whether I’d be able to make it on my own. But I was so determined to go that I decided to risk it, despite my family’s disapproval. Luckily, everything was soon miraculously resolved. At my work-place team-building party I got to chatting with a colleague who also wanted to visit England and who had the same problem as I did, in that she had nobody to go with. So, I told her about my intention and, even though she had never read any of Tolkien’s books at the time, she agreed to go with me. That settled it: I was going to see the exhibition, and much more!
Over the next week, I booked all travel tickets, accommodation, and planned our whole trip. Using Google Maps, I prepared a detailed map of each of the places I wanted to see, the core of which were Tolkien-related sights, plus some other interesting local landmarks such as museums.
I planned to spend 3 days in Oxford and then a further 3 days in Birmingham. I didn’t want to omit a single Tolkien-related spot, so I planned my Oxford tour with the help of Harry Lee Poe’s beautifully illustrated guide The Inklings of Oxford, and the Birmingham ones according to several Tolkien trails that I found on the Internet. Then I impatiently counted down the remaining days until our departure.
Day 0 – Departure
The day finally arrived, on the 2nd August. This was to be my first flight, so I was considerably nervous about it. As it turned out, my nervousness was for nothing. Despite the hour delay, it was a smooth night flight. Arriving at Luton around midnight. And our bus departed at 8am, so we had to spend the rest of the night there. It was not easy at the crowded, noisy airport, but we managed to get a few interrupted hours of sleep, weirdly huddled on the waiting chairs. Not very comfortable but survivable.
We tried to catch up with some more sleep during the two-hour bus ride to Oxford. I don’t know if it was because of the proverbial British weather, and people here being used to lower temperatures, but the National Express buses we took put the AC on in this period of unusual heat wave to almost freezing levels. Yeah, we were lucky enough to visit England during unusually sunny and hot weather. But the bus drivers seemed not to have known about the health care recommendations of appropriate AC settings according to which the difference between the outside and inside temperatures should not exceed 10°C, otherwise human body can experience a thermal shock because of a too fast transition between the two extremes. The lovely warm Tolkien-inspired jumper from Tea with Tolkien seller, which, understandably, I just could not leave home without, was little protection against the cold, which consequently prevented our napping.
But I did not mind it much because I was excited about the trip, and in particular the exhibition which was to be the peak of our first day in Oxford.
A complete map of all the places I visited in Oxford, supplemented with photographs, can be viewed here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1O0yUxOygJxyu1woaOhBN25eIBkyB68ee&usp=sharing
Day 1 – The exhibition and Oxford centre
Upon arrival in Oxford, we first went to check in at the Oxford Backpackers hostel. But arriving there, we found out that the information on their website, provided at booking, was misleading and they did not do check-in all day, but only after 2pm. It was only 11am still. That gave us one hour until our scheduled entrance to the exhibition, so we went to explore the town. First of all, we needed to find some place to go grocery shopping, as we were travelling light and the hostel only provided breakfast. So naturally, our steps led us to the covered market.
It took us a while to orientate ourselves in the town, but after the first day I could say I knew the centre quite well as if I had lived there for a long time.
However, the most confusing was the traffic. Now I won’t even mention the fact that they drive on the wrong side of the road! That, surprisingly, came naturally to me. I just had to learn to look to the right first. Thank heavens for the instructions written on the pavements at crossings; so clever and helpful. But I did not expect there to be such heavy traffic, especially the double-decker buses (or coaches? I still don’t understand the difference) in the centre — it just does not fit into the picture of an historical city — and multitude of people. And the most baffling was their road-crossing customs. The locals seemed to pay no heed to the traffic-lights; red or not, they just crossed the street when no vehicle was coming. Soon we adjusted to their style. Secondly, while it is becoming a more frequent custom for the continental West-European drivers to stop at crossings with no adjacent traffic-lights, when they see someone waiting to cross the street, this was an extremely rare happening in England. At least we, as pedestrians, experienced it only a couple of times; even more seldom than in my East-European homeland (remembering that geographically, Slovakia is in the Central Europe and Slovaks can be easily angered if you call them Easterners!), and that says a lot, to my disappointment.
But back to our journey. The hour passed quickly, so we left the market into Market Street and, a little confused about our position, took Brasenose Lane, passed the Radcliffe Camera, Bodleian Library, and Clarendon Building to at last spot the big banner on Weston Library in front of us, inviting us to the exhibition. I’m preparing a separate article on it, so I’m not going to recount it here. All I can say is that it sure was worth all the travel and would have been even if I had not got to see anything else. A single word to describe it is OVERWHELMING! Like many of other visitors sharing their experience at the Tolkien Society Facebook group, I too spent two hours there and would have stayed even longer if my back was not already hurting under the weight of my bag (I was able to pack all necessary things for the week-long trip into a 6kg backpack!). I strongly recommend it to everyone, not only Tolkien fans; no one leaves it unawed.
Afterwards, we returned to our hostel for the check-in, had some snacks, and went back to the streets of Oxford. Because of the unexpected delay on account of the check-in times, I was not able to manage to see everything I had planned for that day. But still I wanted to have a peek at as many of the spots on my list as I could. The Mesopotamia and Addison’s Walks I had to postpone for another day.
On the way to the hostel we caught a glimpse of TESCO, so we wanted to check that out because this store also operates in Slovakia. How surprised we were to find out that here it is not a big supermarket like it is in our country, but rather a relatively small local grocery shop. Looking for its entrance, we saw St. Mary Magdalen church, with its fascinating old cemetery and the Martyrs Memorial. Then we walked down Broad Street, past Trinity College where the Tolkien boys were graduates, and Blackwell’s bookstore which we ventured into on Sunday, and where I bought Tolkien’s book Finn and Hengest. Next to it is The White Horse, one of the pubs which the Inklings used to meet at. It neighbours Weston Library and across the street, on the corner of Holywell Street and Parks Road stands a pink building, The Kings Arms, another pub they used to visit. As a matter of fact, there are about half a dozen pubs in Oxford which the Inklings frequented. From there we went again past all the library buildings on the right and the Bridge of Sighs on the left, to Racliffe Square and Brasenose Lane, and on to Turl Street, where Exeter College is located. Both Tolkien and Hugo Dyson were undergraduates here, and there is a bust of Tolkien in the college chapel. At first, we thought that it was not open that day since its heavy wooden gate was closed, but then we saw some people coming out and found out that we had about 15 minutes until it closed at 5pm, so we ventured in.
Unlike the Trinity which charges ₤6, Exeter has a free entrance to the yard, the chapel and fellow’s garden. Naturally, I was most eager to see the bust, so we went into the chapel first. The bust is located at the entrance, on the left above the door.
From there we went down Turl Street to The Mitre, another pink-coloured “Inklings’s” pub. Then we took the left course along the high street, past The University Church of St. Mary the Virgin, where Lewis delivered his preachings Learning in War-Time and The Weight of Glory, up to Queen’s Lane on the left. In this lane stands Edmund’s Hall and Church which C. S. Lewis used to attend. The next turn on the High Street, to the right, is Merton Street on the corner of which stands the Eastgate Hotel, another of the Inklings’ meeting places. A little further down Merton Street is the entrance to Oxford University Examination Schools where both Tolkien and C. S. Lewis often lectured.
Then we walked along Longwall Street to Holywell Street. There near the turn of these two streets is a house number 99, a nice, old, stone, 3-story house with white windows. At this address Tolkien lived from May 1950 to March 1953. On the same street, at a more modern looking house, number 12, lived Tolkien’s friend Hugo Dyson. While living here, Tolkien used to attend masses at the New College Chapel and his son Christopher was later a fellow of this college. Unfortunately, we did not have enough time to visit it, so we returned to the high Street and went down it to Magdalen Bridge.
Since the Botanic Garden was also already closed, we had to leave its visit for another day. We passed it from the right, along Rose Lane that led us by Merton Field Park to Broad Walk. So, we passed Merton College, where Tolkien was a fellow and since 1945 and also a professor of English Language and Literature, from the back. That is one of the places I did not have a chance to visit; and therefore a reason to come back again next year.
It was about 6pm now, so our stroll on this walk was accompanied by a good 15 minutes of bell tolling coming probably from the Christ Church Cathedral. The Broad Walk led us to A420 highway, and since we were tired after the whole day and lack of sleep, we headed for our hostel (altogether, we walked about 9 km that day). On the way there, we stopped at Pembroke Square to look at St. Aldate’s Church. Here is also located a side entrance to Pembroke College where Tolkien was a professor of Anglo-Saxon between 1925 and 1945. Unfortunately, this is closed to public. Our last stop of that day was for a dinner at Franco Manca Pizzeria, obviously a very popular eating place, judging from the queue of hungry people that gathered outside it during our stay there. We chose it for a simple reason: the lowest, Slovak-teachers-wages-friendly prices from all the restaurants that we passed that day and had their menus displayed at the entrance. We were not disappointed and the atmosphere and Italian-fisherman look were wonderful.
Day 2 – Headington
The main goal of our second day was to visit Lewis’s house, the Kilns, in Headington, meaning a long tour awaited us. So we woke up early. Upon leaving the hostel, we stopped at Oxford Castle and Mound, but since it was not yet open, and we did not want to lose time, we went to the Covered Market again to buy some roses to put on his, Hugo Dyson’s, and Charles Williams’s graves (I chose white because it symbolizes innocence). The latter two Inklings are buried at Holywell Cemetery situated at St Cross Road. Its entrance just beside the Church from which the road got its name can easily be missed as it is not very clearly marked. The sign on the tiny gate is shaded by overhanging branches and the mystifying overgrowth behind it resembles the Brandybucks’ entrance to the Old Forrest. The spooky look is sharpened by the the presence of provisory bedding of homeless people in the nearby shaded corner. But after few metres through a bush-made tunnel we stepped into a considerably large sized grassy space crowded with tombstones. I don’t know how old this cemetery is, but it is saddeningly and unforgivably neglected: the graveyard is apparently in an advanced stage of the process of being taken over by ages-unmowed dry grass, flourishing weeds and wild bushes, fallen leaves and wind-broken branches of all sizes. Obviously, except for the homeless people trying to find shelter in the deteriorating graveyard sheds, nearly no people visit it nowadays. It is heartbreaking to think that majority of the deceased lying here are already forgotten. The number of the still-tended graves can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
In the centre of this forgotten cemetery, under a tree, stands a bench and next to it a map of the whole place; luckily, still highlighting the resting spots of the several prominent people buried there. Hugo Dyson is not hard to find. His grave is almost right in front of the bench. I removed a couple of twigs and dry leaves from it, finding out that the academic is, instead of Simbelmynë, being honoured by a sprout of chestnut. It was at this point that, looking at the cemetery plan, I realized that I had not checked it properly in the morning and mistakenly believed that it was Lewis who was buried here along with Dyson — I completely forgot about Williams — followed by the realization that I only bought two stems of roses instead of three. Fortunately, it was the kind with multiple small flowers on the top, one with four and one with five. So, I took the one with more flowers and dissected it into to uneven parts. Saying a prayer, I put a triplet on Dyson’s grave, saving the remaining duo for Williams’s. His grave is hidden under a tree at the northern wall, surrounded by an elevating carpet of blackberry bushes and richly sprinkled with oak leaves, so it took a bit more cleaning.
Here I would like to appeals to all the Tolkien or Lewis fans out there planning to visit Oxford: when you do, please, remember to stop by at the Holywell Cemetery and tidy up, at least, the graves of these two Inklings. You can drop a prayer or two as well to remember them.
Opposite the St Cross Church which serves as a museum these days, holding the Balliol’s Historic Collection, is a minor university complex including the English Faculty Library. This hides another, a bigger bust of Tolkien. Unfortunately, the library is closed on Saturdays during the holidays, its website forgot to mention this but the receptionist explained. He bid us to come again on Monday after 9am, which I was doubtful I could manage since on Monday we were to leave for Birmingham.
Disappointed by this, we moved onto Manor Road where Tolkien lived at number 3 from 1947 to 1950. We continued down the road until we passed the last college building on the left and, not spotting the walkway between the building and the hedge, we walked along it from the other side until we re-joined it at the edge of the wood. We headed to Parson’s Pleasure, an old bathing place at the River Cherwell. This river bend used to be Oxford’s first nude pool and a favourite swimming place of Lewis’s. But it slowly deteriorated and was closed in 1991. Nowadays all that swims in there are ducks and punts; no naked academics anymore. The bank provides a nice peaceful place for picnics or reading books.
From Parson’s Pleasure we followed Marston Cyclepath to Headington that led us to a lazily quiet town ward. Through Edgeway Road, B4150, and Jack Straw’s Lane we got to Sandfield Road. The white two-story house, number 76, where Tolkien lived between March 1953 and July 1968 stands on the right, and is marked with a big white plaque. (A funny observation: in Oxford, houses on one side of the road all have even numbers, while those on the opposite side have odd numbers.)
Our next step was to find Cuckoo Lane which would bring us from Sandfield Road to Old High Street, but since it is not marked at this side and is hidden between a brick wall, an old fence and thick growth, we missed it and got a bit lost. First, we took the turn leading to The Manor Hospital, and then, retracing our footsteps, found the turn leading to Sandfield Nursery. It was only on our way back to Sandfield Road that we spotted the old fence and the lane behind it. The Cuckoo Lane is a tight walkway leading between a block of houses on one side and a park on the other, with trees leaning over the fence, thus covering us for a while from the sight of the burning sun.
Number 10, Old High Street, is where Lewis’s American divorcee wife, Joy Davidman lived before marrying him. From there we moved to 14 Holyoake Road, one of the houses nearby where Lewis lived. Another two stand at Windmill Road, numbers 58 and 76. From Windmill Road we turned to Margaret Road which took us to Headington Quarry. There, at the cemetery belonging to Holy Trinity Church, is Lewis’s final resting place. Since the church is still in use (actually, there was a wedding taking place at the time we were there), the cemetery is much better tended than the Holywell. Apparently, Lewis is the only prominent person buried there. There is a sign showing the direction to it on a wall at the end of the concrete path, but since it is positioned at the edge of the wall and this (and a dirt path with it) turns in an obtuse angle from that point, it took us some time to locate it. Had I not remembered what it looked like on Internet pictures, I would have overlooked it. But in the end, we managed to find the big white grave stone, with a big engraved cross. Saying a prayer again, I put the second rose in its middle.
Next, we walked down Beaumont Road, crossing the eastern By-Pass Road to Kiln Road. The fourth turn to the right is Lewis Close, at the end of which stands The Kilns, the most famous and longest inhabited house of the Lewis Brothers. Since the house is still being used as a study by the C.S. Lewis Foundation, tours are held only 3 days in a week and have to be booked in advance, charged at ₤12,50 per adult. We had not done so (another reason for me to return to Oxford someday), so we just observed from the street. On the very last house in this street, neighbouring The Kilns, we spotted a black plaque with a picture of lion and the inscription “Narnia.” Nice! Next to this house is situated the entrance to C. S. Lewis Community Nature Reserve with two ponds looking appropriately like a wild nature conservation, all covered with algae. At one of them, Lewis built a bomb shelter during WWII, but we did not see it from the path we took.
We crossed the wood and got to Old Road, that we followed up to South Park which we passed from the South. I found it strange that most parks in Oxford were mainly a big grassy field with trees usually only along their borders. I wonder what people usually do at such big open spaces. In my conception, a park is rather the opposite of this — an area with many trees, almost a little wood. That’s what we call a park in Slovakia.
Anyway, from there it was just a short distance along St. Cement’s Street to Magdalen Bridge and the Botanical Garden beyond it. This favourite place of Tolkien’s is quite big and there is much to see. It took us a about two hours to explore it completely. Unfortunately, Tolkien’s beloved tree, a black pine, no longer stands there. One day mid-July, 2014, the old tree suddenly broke and had to be completely removed for safety reasons. I vaguely remembered reading in some article back then that some pieces of the tree were on display in the Garden’s buildings (or was it in a museum?); I thought it may be in the Herbarium. But that was not open to public. Luckily, passing the Herbarium by, we stopped and asked about it a lady who works there and was going into it on some errand at that moment. She explained that the herbarium is usually open to public only at some special events; nonetheless, she kindly let us peek in. The room contained several showcases full of dried samples and posters of plants grown in the Garden. No big pieces of the pine’s branches or its stem. Only a sample of its twig with needles and a cone which was surprisingly small for such a big tree. I expected something bigger. But I was grateful to see at least this. Maybe the information about the remains of the pine being on display that stuck in my mind was incorrect. Maybe it was not in the Botanic Garden but rather in some of the local museums, which we, unfortunately, had no time to visit. Or it was on display just for a short time in 2014. Who knows.
Since it was getting late, we headed for the hostel. On the way, we stopped at Blackwell’s for about a half an hour. That is when I bought the book. The second day we walked 23,5 km in 9 hours.
Day 3 – Wolvercote
Since the third day of our trip was Sunday, we started it with the 8 o’clock mass at Oxford Blackfriars. For those who don’t know, Blackfriars is the nickname of Dominican priests, inspired by the colour of their gowns. Their church is at Banbury Road, near the Eagle and Child’s pub. It’s one of the churches Tolkien used to attend, most frequently during the time he lived at 1 Alfred Street, now renamed to Pusey Street. The inside of the church is plain: several rows of wooden chairs with kneelers, no statues or ornaments. All the attention concentrates on the altar and the priest.
We seated ourselves at the back-most row, leaning our backpacks against the wall. The mass was attended by about two dozen people. Unfortunately, there were no prayer books to be used by guests and I forgot that I screenshot the English versions of the main prayers with my tablet, so I could not pray along with others. Instead, I said the prayers in Slovak in my head. When the communion time came, one priest handing out the Eucharist stood in the middle, and two others with chalices stood at the sides. Because that is not the usual custom in Slovakia and because some people did go to receive both the Bread and the Wine while some only the Bread, I was confused what to do — what are the conditions for receiving both? So, I decided to go only for the Bread. Another thing that always confuses me is when some people receive the Eucharist into their mouths and some into their hands. I am used to receiving directly into my mouth, but seeing that most people here receive into their hands, I did likewise. I was surprised that the Eucharist tasted like corn bread. We definitely have nothing like that in my parish.
After the mass, we went to the Covered Market to buy another rose to put on Tolkien’s grave, which we wanted to visit that day, only to find out the market was not yet open. Upon circling it several times, we came across a man cleaning its entrance who told us it would not open for another 60 or 90 minutes. Strolling through the town we learned that no store sells fresh flowers, nor is there any florist open on a Sunday. So, we had no other choice but wait for the Covered Market to open. We stopped by at a number of souvenir shops at Broad Street and the Tourist Visitor Information Centre where we bought some small gifts for our friends. Still having a lot of time left till the Market’s opening, we walked down to Folly Bridge and then back.
When we finally got to buy the flower, we went to the Castle Mound to enjoy the rooftop view of Oxford and take some panorama pictures. Passing New Road, Park End Street and Botley Road, we came to a walkway along the river Thames which starts at Osney Bridge and along which the Inklings used to go for walking tours. The path is well-maintained, with trees providing shade in this, probably the hottest day of our stay so far, lots of blooming plants, and boats, punts and human-food-keen ducks and swans were in the water. The walkway was unexpectedly busy with (also dog-) walkers, joggers and cyclists. We also saw some sport swimmers in the river and a number of kayakers having a race at Fiddler’s Island. On the bank across Bossom’s Boat Yard, a herd of cows were refreshing themselves at the water. A lot more cows and also geese (probably, they were too far away to be sure) were scattered on the field on that side of the river. Beyond the boat yard, the ground was also trampled, but there were small beaches with sunbathing people. The water was alluring. At first, I only walked into the river to the height of my knees. That was somewhere near The Perch inn, which the Inklings used to stop at during their walks, but since it is a way further from the bank and hidden in trees, we did not catch a glimpse of it.
But about a furlong further I could no longer resist. Well, when would I next have the chance to swim in the Thames? Seeing the weather forecast before coming to England, I packed a swimsuit just for this occasion and purposefully wore it that day. I just had to try it. So, I found a spot partially enclosed by trees, took off my shirt, skirt and shoes and jumped into the river. The water was cool but really refreshing in the heat of the day. I did a few strokes, nearly entangling my leg in a water lily and then got back out about 5 minutes later. This was one of my best, and certainly the most unusual, experiences of this holiday. While drying myself and changing my clothes (Don’t worry, nobody saw me, I did my swimming in a quiet period of time when no boat or pedestrians were passing by. Moreover, I have a practice in changing clothes covered under the cover of a big towel, since we have a small swimming pool in the garden.) a very daring swan swam to us, curious whether we had anything in our bags to feed it. We had nothing to give it, we only took pictures of it. I must admit that I felt a strong respect towards the animal when it tried to step out of the water on to the bank just a meter away from me, squatting over my bag and thus looking straight into my eyes. We rather quickly went away so that it would not get curious enough to inspect our packs itself or even peck us.
On the way, we stopped at the ruins of Godstow Abbey near which, across the river, stands another of Inklings’ favourite walk-resting places The Trout Inn, an old looking stone building with a terrace overlooking the river. We followed Godstow Road up to the big roundabout and then the Five Mile Drive (I wonder who gave it the name when it is hardly a half a mile long). At its end, at the corner of Banbury Road is Wolvercote Cemetery. Tolkien’s grave was easy to find as directions to it are marked on small boards at the edge of the paths. I put the rose on his grave, watered the flowers growing there and said a prayer. It felt like visiting the grave of a family relative. It was only several weeks later that I learned that his son John is also buried at this place. Had I known it earlier, I would have visited his grave too. One more reason to come back next year.
After some time at the cemetery we set off on the way to Oxford along Banbury Road. It was somewhere at Summertown when something unfortunate happened. I was checking the map in my tablet for directions to Northmoor Road — I remember the battery being 70% charged — then put it into my bag and when I picked it out some ten minutes later again to see how further it was, the tablet was dead! It did not turn on again until plugged into the charger. But even then, it did not work properly, showing the date 1st January 2016 and the touchscreen not responding. I was furious because I did not save the photos I took with it the first days anywhere else, which makes up about a third of all the photos taken to far, including photos of various houses Tolkien inhabited. Upon returning to Slovakia, I brought it to a repairer who told me he can get them out, but so far it has not been finished. If he succeeds, I will upload the photos to the map the link to which is provided at the beginning of this article. But in Oxford I could do nothing else with it. Luckily, we was already on the way back to town, so there were just a few places remaining I wanted to see. But I had to look the map out online with my phone which meant I had to spend my Internet data.
In spite of the unexpected complication, we found Belbroughton Road which led us to Northmoor Road quite easily. Tolkien lived here at the houses number 20 and 22; even numbers on one side, the houses neighbour each other. No 22 is hidden behind trees, but No 20 is marked by a blue plaque. At the end of Bardwell Road, to which Northmoor Road leads, is The Dragon School which John Francis Tolkien attended. But not having my prepared map with all these spots marked in the tablet, I forgot about it. Otherwise I would have looked at it and photograph it.
Our third to last stop was The Eagle and Child’s pub where we stopped for food. The Inklings’ table is near the bar but was currently occupied by, as I found out as we leaft, another Tolkienite pilgrims, so we chose a table at the back and ordered, what else but the typical British meal: fish and chips. For Slovak teachers a nearly £12 meal is rather expensive, so we decided to take only one portion and split it. As it turned out, it was the best decision hunger-wise. After 7 hours of walking we were as hungry as wolves; luckily, the portion was so big that even half fed us up. I sure would not be able to finish it, if I had it all for myself. And it was delicious; the fish was soft as a cloud with nice crunchy crust. Yummy. I can only recommend it. Sitting there we heard Slovak spoken at the next table, so we greeted the people in Slovak upon leaving and had a laugh about it. Then I stopped at the Inklings’ corner to take pictures, the couple still being there. They asked me to take pictures of then and in turn they took pictures of me there.
Leaving the Bird and Baby’s, as the Inklings nicknamed it, we crossed the street to get to another of the dons’ favourite pubs, The Lamb and Flag, which they met at during the WWII when the opposite pub was closed. The map on my phone showed that there should be a passage next to it, leading to Museum Road, but the screen was too small to discern that there is a sharp turn to it behind the building, so when we looked into the pub’s backyard, we could only see a wall at the back so we thought it was closed on the other side. So, we walked all the way around Broad Street and Parks Road to get to S Parks Road which brought us to Marston Cyclepath. We wanted to see the Mesopotamia Walk that begins near the Parson’s Peasure, but the entrance there was barricaded, probably because of some repairs going on, so we had to ask for another way to it. That is hidden in the tree alley that runs across the field from Headington. I hoped that we could get by the Mesopotamia Walk to Magdalen College Fellows’ Garden and from there through Bat Willow Meadow to Addison’s Walk because Google Maps said that was possible. Apparently, they don’t care about private and closed paths. So instead we had to take King’s Mill Lane to Marston Road and St Clement’s Street to get to Magdalen College. As it turned out, there is no other way to get to Addison’s walk but to buy entrance to the college for £6 (maybe except for swimming to The Water meadow island from river Chervell) This grants you access to the Walk, Magdalen Chapel, St John’s Squad, the wonderful Cloister, Hall, New Building Lawns, and Deer park on the island. The Addison’s Walk was unlike I expected. I remembered it from pictures on some Tolkien-related websites as a regularly spaced tree alley through which the college building was visible. But that must have been shot at the beginning of spring, because now in the middle of summer the growth around was quite thick and the building was not glimpse-able. But it was all green and reminded me of Ithilien.
That day we walked 25 km in 10 and half hours. Upon coming back to the hostel, we packed all our belongings because the next day we were to travel to Birmingham.