Oxford is one of the world's oldest and most influential universities cities, home to the University of Oxford — the oldest university in the English-speaking world, founded (in various forms) in the 1090s and certainly teaching in its current form from 1167. The 38 colleges that make up the university are not centrally located on a campus but distributed through the medieval city centre — Balliol (founded 1263), Merton (1264), Exeter, Christ Church, Magdalen, New College, All Souls, Trinity and Keble are all within walking distance of the central Carfax Tower and each has its own chapel, hall, library and gardens. The physical result is extraordinary: an entire medieval city that is simultaneously a working university — students in gowns crossing cobbled lanes between buildings that have changed little since the 14th century. Oxford also has two extraordinary museums available free of charge: the Ashmolean (the world's first university museum, founded 1683, with the original Guy Fawkes lantern, the Alfred Jewel and Raphael paintings) and the Pitt Rivers Museum (Victorian anthropological collection in glass cases, including the shrunken heads that schoolchildren find simultaneously horrifying and enthralling). Oxford's other claim on world culture is J.R.R. Tolkien (Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke and Merton, wrote The Lord of the Rings in Oxford), C.S. Lewis (Magdalen College, wrote Narnia in Oxford and met the Inklings at The Eagle and Child pub), Lewis Carroll (wrote Alice in Wonderland for the daughter of the Christ Church dean), Inspector Morse (the fictional detective whose pub scenes are filmed at Oxford pubs) and the Harry Potter series (Bodleian Library and Christ Church Hall were filming locations).
The grandest Oxford college (founded by Cardinal Wolsey, 1525, completed by Henry VIII) has the largest quadrangle in Oxford, the Christ Church Cathedral (the college chapel that is simultaneously the cathedral of the Diocese of Oxford), and the Great Hall (filmed as Hogwarts in Harry Potter) — Tom Tower by Christopher Wren houses the 7-ton bell "Great Tom" that rings 101 times every night at 9:05.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Bodleian (est. 1602) is one of the world's oldest and largest libraries — the 15th-century Divinity School (Oxford's oldest surviving purpose-built room, Gothic fan vaulting) was the Hogwarts hospital ward in Harry Potter; the Duke Humfrey's Library above it (1488) is the oldest reading room; the dome of the Radcliffe Camera (1737) beside it is Oxford's icon.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Radcliffe Camera (James Gibbs, 1748) — a circular domed library reading room — is Oxford's most photographed building; the views from the Bodleian quad looking at the Camera with All Souls College (the most exclusive: no undergraduates, only 60 fellows) behind it is the definitive Oxford image.
Founded 1683, the Ashmolean holds the Guy Fawkes lantern, the Alfred Jewel (900 CE, possibly Alfred the Great's), Powhatan's mantle (1607, from Pocahontas's father), Raphael drawings, Michelangelo sketches and a collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings — all free, all in a magnificent neoclassical building on Beaumont Street.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Eagle and Child pub (St Giles Street, est. 1650) is where J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis read chapters of The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia aloud to the Inklings literary group every Tuesday for two decades — a pint of Hook Norton ale in the back "Rabbit Room" is an Oxford pilgrimage.
The Oxford University Natural History Museum (1860, Gothic Revival cathedral of science) with its dinosaur skeletons, dodo specimens and the building where the famous 1860 Oxford evolution debate between Bishop Wilberforce and Thomas Huxley took place — leads directly into the Pitt Rivers Museum (1884), a Victorian anthropological cabinet of curiosities including shrunken heads, Melanesian war clubs and Northwest Coast masks all free.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideConsidered the most beautiful Oxford college, Magdalen (pronounced "Maudlin") has its own deer park (15 deer), the 48 m Magdalen Tower (whose choristers sing from the top at 06:00 on May 1st, a 500-year tradition), the New Building (1733) and the Water Walks along the Cherwell River through meadows within the college walls.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuidePunting (propelling a flat-bottomed punt boat with a long pole) is the definitive Oxford summer activity — Cherwell Boathouse and Magdalen Bridge Boathouse hire punts (£20–25/hr) for self-guided trips past Magdalen College, Christ Church Meadow and the Botanic Garden; the most pleasant way to experience the Oxford waterways.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Oxford Covered Market (est. 1774) has the famous Ben's Cookies (the world's best cookies according to many visitors), butchers and fishmongers; for dinner, Quod Restaurant in the Old Bank Hotel serves modern British, or the Cherwell Boathouse for riverside setting.
Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson, Christ Church Mathematics don) told the original Alice story to Alice Liddell (daughter of the Christ Church dean) on a rowing trip up the Thames in 1862 — Alice's Shop on St Aldate's (the "Old Curiosity Shop" where Alice bought her sweets), the Christ Church Meadow where Carroll walked, and the Alice-related window in Christ Church Cathedral.
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideNew College (founded 1379, "new" only relative to Merton and Balliol) has the finest medieval city wall walk in Oxford — the 14th-century crenellated wall passes through the college garden (where the garden warden has tended the lawn for 600 years uninterrupted); the Antechapel has the Jacob Epstein sculpture "Lazarus" (1952).
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe birthplace of Winston Churchill (1874) and the largest private palace in England (baroque, 1722, John Vanbrugh) is 20 minutes from Oxford — the state rooms, the Churchill exhibition, the 2,000-acre Capability Brown landscape park and the formal water terraces are outstanding; the palace is the only non-royal, non-episcopal building in England to hold the title "Palace."
🎫 Book tickets via GetYourGuideThe Trout Inn at Godstow (5 km from Oxford centre, on the upper Thames) is a 12th-century inn beside the ruins of Godstow Nunnery — Inspector Morse drank here, Colin Dexter set scenes here, and the peacocks in the garden and the Thames river weir beside the terrace make it the most idyllic pub setting in the Oxford area.