Christ Church

I do the walk around Christ Church meadow almost every day, but I'd never actually been inside the college itself. You need a ticket, and they're only released once a week, so I've thought of it as something I'd maybe do sometime. But you can attend services at the cathedral, which is on the main quad of the college, and last Saturday I went to Evensong there.

This is the cathedral entrance from Tom Quad, and the altar inside. Tom Quad is named for Great Tom, the bell in the tower over the entrance to the college. It's the loudest bell in Oxford (I can attest to this) and rings every night at 9:05 pm. Everything at Christ Church is five minutes behind the rest of Oxford, because they still stick to the original Oxford time, which was five minutes behind Greenwich Time. So Evensong began at 6:05.

Bridge of Sighs

This is a famous landmark in Oxford I've mostly ignored because, like the Radcliffe Camera, quite enough pictures of it exist already. But it did look very pretty on a sunny summer day, so here you are.

It joins two buildings at Hertford College, and, despite its antique appearance, is only a hundred years old.

Green Templeton College

I had never heard of most of the component colleges of Oxford University before last summer, though I'm obviously a lot more familiar with them now after spending so much time just walking around here.

This is one of the newer colleges (really new, like 20th century) though the buildings housing it are not, and I peeked in at this charming courtyard on my way back from the Mathematical Institute.

Penrose tiling

I'm trying not to take any pictures of things in Oxford that I photographed last summer, however picturesque they may seem in the moment. For some reason, this has not reduced the number of pictures I'm taking by much.

But this is definitely new. Yesterday I walked up the Woodstock Road to the Mathematical Institute to see these tiles in the courtyard. These are a Penrose tiling, named after Sir Roger Penrose, professor of mathematics, and also a well-known cosmologist who worked with Stephen Hawking. I have a cold—not a bad one, but it's definitely making me too stupid to attempt much of an explanation of aperiodic tiling, especially since I don't really understand it in the first place.

I do know that the tiles have two shapes, a kite and a dart, but the pattern never repeats, and will never repeat no matter how large an area is covered.

Sunday bird blogging

A cygnet at Newstead Abbey, Lord Byron's home in Nottinghamshire, where we took a field trip on Thursday.

There was a whole family of swans, two adults and six youngsters, lounging under a tree. I couldn't get very close because I didn't want to upset Mom and Dad, but I enjoyed seeing the contortions those fuzzy little bodies managed to get into; they clearly weren't sure what to do with those long necks yet. This guy sat up long enough to be recognizable as a swan.

Saturday reflections

Flowers reflected in the river at Magdalen College this morning.

The Cove

This is one of the two stones known as “the Cove.” I have a picture of the house framed by both of the stones but I like this one better. Imagine having this in your backyard!

Standing stones

The stones at Avebury were mostly not shaped, unlike the ones at Stonehenge. They were just dragged from the nearby downs and put in place.

We were encouraged to hug the stones and must of us did. Someone told me afterwards that I looked very “dramatic” when I was embracing my stone, but I figure if you're going to take up stone-hugging, you might as well commit to it.

Avebury fields forever

Views of the fields around Avebury from the top of the bank—another very good reason to avoid the ditch.

Chalk

I did know that, geologically, much of England sits on top of a bed of chalk, and I've seen the white cliffs of Dover, but I don't think I ever realized how close to the surface it can come, like a scar across the landscape.

The henge

Taking a walk along the henge to circumnavigate the site was optional. I did it, but it was more of a trek than I'd anticipated. It was hot and a long section of the path was chalk, which is rocky and crunchy underfoot.

Our archaeologist guide told us about one of her students, who had scoffed when she repeated an old saying that “the ditch isn't meant for humans” and insisted on walking around the site through the ditch rather than up on the bank. When he finally emerged, he said it had been one of the worst experiences of his life, though not for any supernatural reasons. The ditch is wet and muddy, full of midges, thorns, and sheep droppings, and so any elemental powers warning you off are actually doing you a favor.

Life inside a monument

The stone circles at Avebury are not as obvious as Stonehenge for several reasons. First, the size of the site is much larger—more than eight square miles, including the henge. And, many of the stones are missing. The outer circle originally consisted of approximately 100 sarsen stones, each 12 to 14 feet tall; only 27 stones remain. Some of them were taken for building materials, and some of them were toppled and buried because they were thought to be the work of the devil.

Finally, part of what's wonderful about the site is that the stones aren't roped off. Village life goes on around the stones and through the circles. I like to imagine the dog walkers yanking their leashes and saying, “No, Flossy, don't pee on the megalith!”

Avebury

This charming village is about twenty minutes from Stonehenge. It was lovely to see green grass and flowers that aren't brown and dying, like most of those in Oxford this dry summer.

And the village sits in the middle of a henge and two stone circles that are much larger than Stonehenge—so large that I needed to look at aerial photographs to make any sense of it.

Evensong

The chapel at Merton was closed for renovations last summer, so I never got to see the interior. It's open again, and I've been inside a few times. Our welcome drinks reception was held in the outer chapel because of rain—there's a wonderful combination of practicality and insouciance—and I've gone to sit there a couple of times just to clear my head.

There are no regular services during the summer, but a choir from Duke University is in Oxford this week and sang Evensong in the chapel today. The music was exquisite; I think I have a small icy fist permanently clenched in my gut these days and this service eased that a little in a way that surprised me.

I also loved that they used actual candles for light, in the stalls and on the two chandeliers. I'd love to go to a service in the winter when it's dark outside and you're listening to the music by the glow of candlelight.

The Heel Stone

This sarsen stone stands a few hundred feet from the stone circle, outside the earthworks, on what would have been the avenue approaching the monument.

It's placed to align with the sunrise at the midsummer solstice, and the sunset at the winter solstice. You can get tickets to go inside the monument to watch the sunrise and sunset during the hours when the monument isn't open to the public, not just at the solstices.

More Stonehenge

The amazing lintels

If you zoom in on this picture, you can just see where the separate lintel stones are joined together.

Some useful models

These models in the Visitor Center are really useful for understanding what Stonehenge looked like in 2500 BC and what it looks like today. It consisted of trilithons—two standing stones topped with a lintel—in a rough horseshoe shape, surrounded by a ring of smaller bluestones. The sarsen stones (sarsen is a kind of sandstone common in southern England) in the outer circle are each about thirteen feet high and seven feet wide. Most incredibly, the lintels on top of those stones were connected with mortise and tenon joints. How did they do that?

In the model on the left you can really see the ditch and banks surrounding the site, which were built hundreds of years before the stones were put in place, and are quite impressive on their own—we climbed the bank to see the view on our way to the stones. The “henge” in Stonehenge probably originally meant to hang, but is now used by archaeologists to refer to any circular ditch and bank. We saw another one at Avebury later that day.

Salisbury Plain

It's a little over a mile from the visitor center to the stones. There's a shuttle bus, but I opted to walk across the fields with the archaeologist who was leading the group. The land is so flat the Dakotas would be envious, and we didn't pass that many people on the path—unlike at the monument, which was of course very crowded. Lots of sheep though.

It was fun to imagine how the people approaching Stonehenge thousands of years ago would have seen a landscape not that different from the one we were walking through, and how amazing that first glimpse of the stones in the distance must have seemed to them. I mean, I knew it was coming and it was still a thrill.

Approaching Stonehenge

I have wanted to visit Stonehenge ever since I took some astronomy classes in college. It may or may not have functioned as a prehistoric observatory, or as a religious site, or as a place of healing—or, all of the above—but it had such a fascination for me. For years, at every solstice, I'd think, “I wish I were at Stonehenge.”

And when I caught this first glimpse of the stones through the bus window, I couldn't breathe for a moment. There's such a thrill in seeing a place you've seen pictures of all your life: the pyramids, Mont St-Michel, Machu Picchu, even the White House. Oh my God, there it is! I'm really here!

Bonus bird blogging

There will be no problem identifying this bird: it is most definitely a magpie, looking forward to enjoying the delicious insect it just caught.

Taken by Christ Church Meadow earlier this week.

Sunday bird blogging

Those are starlings sitting on top of the stones, in case you can't tell from the picture, and you probably can't.

But I don't imagine I will ever get to post a picture of birds at Stonehenge again, so tiny starlings it is.

Oh, and I also went here today

 

The darker side of fame

One of the things I wondered about at Apsley House was how Wellington had coped with his fame, which was relatively sudden and must often have felt overwhelming. At least he didn't know that his false teeth would be displayed to the world after his death.

The original wellingtons

Yes, the boots were named after the duke.

I couldn't get a good picture of them, but I thought it was interesting so I'm including it anyway. The boots generally worn by cavalry were thigh-high and protected the legs during battles, but were difficult to walk in. And the boots worn by infantry were ankle-high, good for walking but not great for keeping the feet dry. So Wellington had waterproof knee-high boots made for himself and they became very popular. They've been made of rubber rather than leather since the mid-nineteenth century, but they're still called wellingtons.

Napoleon and Josephine

The art collection in the museum is really impressive—there are paintings by Velazquez, Titan, Goya, Rubens—and more interesting than all the gilt and mirrors and Adam ceilings in the house itself. But this also includes dozens of paintings and statues of Napoleon (including a colossal statue in the front entryway.) Apparently anyone who owned a painting of the former emperor foisted it off on the duke as a show of admiration.

I do really like these portraits of Napoleon and Josephine, though.

Saturday reflections

A portrait of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, reflected in a display case of his uniforms at Apsley House, his home in London.

We toured the house on our field trip on Thursday. My course this year is on the Brontës, who were all great admirers of Wellington. (Charlotte Brontë named the hero of the imaginary kingdom she created with her brother “Arthur Wellesley” after the duke.)

The Brontës weren't alone—the house is packed with trophies, silver, fine china and most of the Spanish royal collection of paintings looted by Joseph Bonaparte, all of it presented to the victor of Waterloo by the grateful royal houses of Europe.

Little house on the prairie

 

More canola fields

Canola

Then we started to pass canola fields. The bright yellow fields alternating with greens were unexpectedly beautiful. The weather had also improved!

Windbreak

I didn't find this drive boring at all; although there definitely weren't a lot of landmarks or flashy geological formations to admire, I enjoyed how different it was from anything I'm used to. Like these trees, which act as a windbreak for the house behind them. Or the fences set back from the highway, which are there to catch the snow and prevent it from drifting into the road.

This is the real Big Sky Country. When nothing obstructs the horizon, the sky takes up a disproporionate amount of what you're seeing.

Jumping back to, say, North Dakota

 

There's a drought here in the UK, and most of the lawns at Merton have gone brown—they water a couple of the smaller ones. And many of the flowers in the gardens are dying or dead. There's been a little rain this week, but clearly not the amounts they need.

So here's a flashback to rainy and quite green North Dakota, the morning we set off from Jamestown, heading west. Flat, flat, and then more flat.

One more dinosaur

I don't remember what kind of dinosaur this is, but I still like the image.

T. Rex

There's a parade of mammal skeletons, including bison, elephants, and giraffes, in the main hall, and also some dinosaur skeleton replicas. I like the way the black and white photo makes the bones feel like part of the building design.

Ceiling details

I really love the design here—the plant ornamentation and the decorations on the wrought iron. It's not remotely minimalist, and not my usual taste, but with the patterns of shadow on the iron, it's really lovely.

Museum of Natural History

I know I've been jumping from state to state and country to country without any apparent plan recently, but it's a pleasant evening in Oxford and I'm sitting on the deck behind my hotel and I'd rather finish up one Oxford topic before jumping back to, say, North Dakota.

The museum building, completed in 1860, consists of a large exhibition hall, with decorated wrought iron pillars supporting a glass ceiling. (I may have mentioned how hot it was in there yesterday!) I took this picture from the gallery.

Sunday bird blogging

OK, this wandering albatross is most definitely, as Monty Python might point out, pining for the fjords, but as I have actually seen many albatrosses in the past year, at least one of them a wandering, I think it counts as bird blogging.

It was certainly the one thing that really surprised me in the natural history museum yesterday. It's one thing to know that these birds can have an eleven foot wingspan; it's quite another to actually see how fricking huge they are. (The woman standing behind the display is very useful for scale!)