A late tutorial in Latin in Oxford with Brian and a new mural under Donnington Bridge

An unexpected but humorous tutorial in Latin in Oxford this week (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

Some of the best street art in Oxford is actually not visible from the streets but is found under the bridges. I came across one work this week that is inspired by a scene in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, the 1979 film, but that also appeals to everyone with an interest in Latin and the classics or in the history of radical movements and agrarian agitation.

It was a bright sunny afternoon, with clear blue skies, and I went for a long walk through Christ Church Meadow in Oxford, by the banks of the river, before crossing the small footbridge to continue walking along on the north bank at Boathouses Walk, where most of the college boathouses are.

The most famous stretch of river in Oxford is probably the section between Folly Bridge and Iffley Lock. It is part of the River Thames, but at this section it is popularly known as the Isis. The college rowing crews train there and there are two major events each year: Torpids in late February and Eights in mid-May. Scullers and rowers were out on the river, training earnestly, with small tour boats making their way along through them, and there were geese, ducks and a family of swans too.

Donnington Bridge crosses the River Thames or Isis and the Thames Path towpath, between Iffley Lock to the south and Osney to the north (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

But my walk came to an abrupt end where the Isis meets the Cherwell, and I decided to retrace my steps, crossed Folly Bridge and returned to the river to walk along the towpath on the south bank, which runs for 1.5 miles past a couple of boathouses, moorings with houseboats, narrowboats and barges, the secluded Longbridges Nature Park and on towards Iffley Lock.

I never got as far as Iffley Lock or Isis Farmhouse, this time, because I was stopped in my tracks along the Thames Path by the goose art under Donnington Bridge. The Oxford Canal Mural Project has organised a series of artworks under bridges along the waterways around Oxfordshire, and the space under Donnington Bridge is frequently updated by street artists, with vibrant nature and animal motifs painted on the concrete pillars.

Donnington Bridge crosses the River Thames or Isis and the Thames Path towpath, between Iffley Lock to the south and Osney to the north, and connects Abingdon Road and Iffley Road. The bridge was opened on 22 October 1962, but there may have been a river crossing at or near this point in Roman times, before Oxford existed, linking to the Roman road from Dorchester to Alchester. There was nothing there after Roman times, and until the mid-20th century it was only possible to cross the river at this point by ferry.

The new mural under Donnington Bridge is said to have been started to poke fun at an Oxford scholar across the river (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026; click on image for full-screen viewing)

Previous images under the bridge have included one depicting an evil-looking Tony Blair war-mongering and greedy for money and oil in Iraq. A new graffiti mural appeared under Donnington Bridge within the past two or three month and is the creation of a local artist Mani (the Big Orange M). It includes geese and references to the Roman presence here with allusions to The Life of Brian.

The street art there is said to have been started to poke fun at an Oxford scholar from across the river who disliked The Life of Brian, which has inspired a long list of ‘silly goose’ puns. The mural also includes the fourth stanza from a song about agrarian agitation that developed as a response to the Enclosure Acts:

The crime is great, in man or woman,
Who steals a goose from a common;
But surely ’tis a worse abuse,
To steal the common from the goose.

The song or poem is a powerful critique of the Enclosure Acts that privatised shared public lands. It lampoons the hypocrisy of the law and how it severely punishes the poor for stealing a goose, while allowing wealthy landowners to steal the common land itself.

From the 1700s on, wealthy landlords used legislation to fence off traditional, shared village pastures and forests to turn them into private property. Rural people relied on these commons to graze their livestock, to gather firewood, and to survive, but were stripped of their livelihoods while landed families were protected by the law while claiming communal resources for themselves.

John Clare’s verse is a critique of the Enclosure Acts that privatised shared public lands (Photographs: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The poem about the goose and the common has many variations, and these lines first appeared in the Monthly Magazine in 1810, and later in the London Express in 1848. But the original version is attributed to the Northamptonshire poet John Clare (1793-1864). Today, the poem has evolved into a famous anti-capitalist folk song and a rallying cry for activists protecting public spaces.

Other lettering on the mural hint at grievances about mooring rights along this stretch of the river – ‘Honk, Honk, Honk’ and ‘No Moorings’ with its ending crossed out to read ‘No Moor Hens’.

At the north end of the mural, the Latin saying Romanes eunt domus CCCXC BC has been altered purposefully or corrected to read Romani ite domum CCCXC BC.

‘Romanes eunt domus’ is an intentionally incorrect Latin phrase that translates as ‘People called 'Romanes' they go the house?’ It is the famous, grammatically butchered graffiti from Monty Python’s Life of Brian.

The sketch draws on John Cleese’s time as a teacher, when he taught Latin to 10-year-olds at Saint Peter’s, a preparatory school in Weston-super-Mare. He said the sketch was inspired by an occasion when he wrote on the blackboard a number of times a word that he as a teacher had misspelled, demonstrating his even-handedness.

The centurion is concerned not with Brian’s act of vandalism, but with his inept Latin grammar. Once Brian has arrived at the correct answer, the centurion imposes a grammar school punishment – writing lines – instead of the punishment a vandal or rebel might expect. Instead of punishing Brian for writing the graffito, the centurion instructs him to repeat the act 100 times, using good grammar.

In the film, Brian is an anti-Roman agitator who is caught painting ‘Romans go home’ on the palace walls. Instead of punishing him, a pedantic Roman centurion forces him to conjugate his verbs and decline his nouns – treating a public execution like a strict classroom lesson in Latin.

Romani ite domum is the corrected Latin phrase for the graffito Romanes eunt domus. The scene features John Cleese as a centurion and Graham Chapman as Brian, at that point a would-be member of the revolutionary People’s Front of Judea. To prove himself a worthy candidate for membership, Brian has to daub the anti-Roman slogan ‘Romans go home’ on the walls of Pontius Pilate’s palace in Jerusalem, under cover of darkness, written in Latin for the Romans to read.

He completes the phrase Romanes eunt domus when he is caught by the centurion. Brian is terrified and expects to be killed on the spot. Instead, the centurion corrects Brian’s grammatical errors like traditional Latin teacher, for he has written ‘People called Romanes they go the house’.

John Cleese’s centurion forces Brian to use the proper imperative verb form and accusative case and to write the correct phrase, Romani ite domum, 100 times, threatening to ‘cut [his] balls off’ if he has not done so by sunrise.

Brian does so, covering nearly every surface of the plaza with the graffiti while he is supervised by two guards. When he finishes the task the following morning, one soldier says ‘don’t do it again’ and leaves with his comrade. Just as they leave, three other soldiers come round the corner and see the graffiti. Brian realises his position and races off, chased by the soldiers. In subsequent scenes, various Roman soldiers can be seen erasing the seditious graffiti.


A tutorial in Latin in onty Python’s Life of Brian (1979)

The exchange on the case of domus is worth repeating:

Centurion: ‘Domus’? Nominative? ‘Go home’? This is motion towards. Isn’t it, boy?

Brian: Dative, sir!

[The centurion draws his sword and holds it to Brian’s throat]

Brian: Ahh! No, not dative! Not the dative, sir! Oh, the ... accusative! Accusative! ‘Domum’, sir! ‘Ad domum’!

Centurion: Except that ‘domus’ takes the ...?

Brian: The locative, sir!

Centurion: Which is ...?!

Brian: ‘Domum’.

Some Latin scholars may point out that the centurion is mistaken in accepting Brian’s answer of the locative case, although the result was correct. The locative case indicates presence at or in a particular place, such as a city, town, or small island. The locative of domus, meaning a house or home, would be domi. But motion toward a place or thing was indicated using the accusative of motion towards, domum being the allative construction correctly used in the final formulation of the graffito.

This confusion over the use of the locative case is an example of how even people who are well-educated in Latin occasionally err when it comes to grammatical details. But the sketch may be incomprehensible to many today, as Latin is no longer taught in schools in the way my generation learned it.

Beneath the Latin ‘homework’, tucked into a discreet corner of the assemblage is the date ‘CCCXC BC’. Not that the Romans would have used the date ‘CCCXC BC’ for the year 390 BC, but what happened that year? What did the Romans do for us then? 390 BC is four centuries or more before the supposed setting for The Life of Brian, and the Romans certainly did not have their eyes set on Jerusalem – nor were they contemplating the road from Dorchester to Alchester almost 2,500 years.

In the year 390 BC, the Roman Republic suffered a devastating defeat at the Battle of the Allia against the Senones, a Gallic tribe led by chieftain Brennus. The Gauls subsequently captured and sacked Rome, profoundly shaping the trajectory of the Roman military and state.

A houseboat on the River Thmas near Donnington Bridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Winston Churchill once said, ‘I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honour, and Greek as a treat.’ I did Latin at school from 12 to 17 in my secondary schools, sat an honours paper in Latin at the Leaving Certificate (the Irish equivalent of A Levels) in 1969, and I still remember reading Caesar, Ovid, Pliny and Horace, as well as the difficulty of wrestling with the finer points of Latin grammar.

Many, many years later, I went on to do some post-graduate work in liturgical Latin in the Institutum Liturgicum at Ealing Abbey in 2012 in association with the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at KU Leuven.

But I never thought I would have my most amusing tutorial in Latin in Oxford, under a bridge, on the town path along the Isis, surrounded by geese, house boats, rowers and sculls, thanks to John Cleese and Monty Python’s Life of Brian.

A summer stroll along the towpath and under the bridges (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

The Oranges and Lemons are back in fashion in the St Clements area near the heart of Oxford

The Oranges and Lemons in St Clement’s … returning to a name from the 1970s and 1980s (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Patrick Comerford

When I was visiting hospitals and clinics in Oxford recent weeks, I mused on the name of Port Mahon on St Clement’s Street, but also on the name of some of the neighbouring pubs with curious names that I noticed on those return journeys, including the Cape of Good Hope, at the corner of the Plain, where Cowley Road meets St Clement;s Street and Headington Road, and the Oranges and Lemons – which seems such an appropriate name for St Clement’s.

I promised myself that once I was back on my feet fully again I would continue my explorations and find out about those curious pub names.

So, at lunchtime yesterday, I was back in Oxford, and decided to have another look at the Oranges & Lemons at 30 St Clement’s Street.

It describes itself as a ‘quintessential traditional pub in Oxford’ that prides itself ‘on offering great food and excellent service’ and that ‘promises a delightful experience’ with ‘an array of pub classics and seasonal daily specials’.

But the Oranges & Lemons is anything but an ordinary pub on the fringes of the city centre. Apart from having an apt name for an area known as St Clements, it has a three-storey façade that has been painted brightly to full-height with an eye-catching and colourful collection of lemons and oranges, and the theme is carried into the name sign on the street frontage.

A large old photograph of punks and other drinkers outside the old Oranges & Lemons is still on the wall of the main bar. The photograph was taken in 1979, when it was a lively music venue frequented by punks and attracting acts such as Billy Idol of Generation X. According to the Oxford Handbook in 1980, ‘the atmosphere is wonderful. Have a chat with the tramp warming himself by the coal fire. Gaze at the punks with hair all colours of the spectrum.’

The Morgan Pub Collective also runs the Grapes in George Street and took over the Angel and Greyhound in St Clement’s last year. It reopened the pub six month ago [12 February] after a refurbishment that saw it revert to a previous name, the Oranges & Lemons. During those works over a six-week period, the contractors stayed across the street at another traditional pub, the Old Black Horse Inn.

The change of ownership, the refurbishment and the restoration of the former name all came as a surprise to people in the St Clement’s area. The pub was known as the Burton Ale Stores from 1920 on, and then was known as the Oranges & Lemons from 1970 until the mid-1980s. After that, it became a cocktail bar called Parker’s in the 1980s.

When Young’s acquired it in 1991, it was renamed the Angel & Greyhound, a name that came from a former coaching inn, the Angel and the Greyhound on Oxford’s High Street, that once stabled horses in a field behind the old pub in St Clement’s.

Young’s was once a brewery but is now only a pub chain with over 270 pubs, including three in Oxford: the King’s Arms, close to Hertford College, St Aldates Tavern, opposite the town hall and museum, and the Plough Inn on the corner of Cornmarket Street and Saint Michael’s Street.

The Oranges & Lemons in St Clement’s … known as the Angel & Greyhound until a recent change of management (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

When the Angel & Greyhound became the Oranges & Lemons once again, it was the second pub in St Clement’s to change management in a short span of time, following Port Mahon a few months earlier.

Dick Morgan, the founder of the Morgan Pub Collective, had already made a success of the Grapes, which reopened in George Street in August 2023, and of the Gardeners Arms in North Parade Avenue. However, the Gardeners Arms closed earlier this year, and the lease was returned to Greene King.

Morgan pubs are also known for their food, décor and vinyl music from record players. But the name Oranges & Lemons comes from a traditional nursery rhyme and singing game that includes the lines,

Oranges and Lemons, say the bells of St Clement’s
You owe me five farthings, say the bells of St Martin’s.

The lines refer not to Oxford but to the bells of Saint Clement Danes Church in London among several other churches, and the tune is listed as No 13190 in the Roud Folk Song Index, a database of around 250,000 references to almost 25,000 songs. The earliest known version appeared in print ca 1744. The bells of Saint Clement Danes ring out the tune four times a day, at 9 am, noon, 3 pm and 6 pm.

St Clement’s Street in Oxford is often known simply as St Clement’s, and it was originally the main road between Oxford and London. The street links the Plain near Magdalen Bridge beside Magdalen College with London Place at the foot of Headington Hill at the junction with Marston Road to the north.

The street is known for its small shops and restaurants and the street and church give their name to St Clement’s district on the east bank of the River Cherwell. This is a small triangular area from the roundabout known as the Plain, bounded by the River Cherwell to the north, Cowley Road to the south, and the foot of Headington Hill to the east.

The population of the area is a multicultural and socially diverse, from owner occupiers, student accommodation and homes in multiple occupation to social housing. A number of buildings belong to the Charity of Thomas Dawson or the Dawson Trust, founded in 1521 to provide income for the benefit of the people of St Clement’s and the parish church.

The Plain received its name after the parish church of Saint Clement’s, which stood there, was demolished around 1829 to allow a busy street junction to be reconfigured. The roundabout is the site of the former churchyard.

But more about Saint Clement’s Church, old and new, and that roundabout at the Plain on another day, hopefully.

The Oranges and Lemons is at the heart of the St Clement’s area in Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

A Gothic ‘castle’ by a bridge in Oxford holdshidden stories of student folly and misbehaviour

Caudwell’s Castle on Folly Bridge is a pretty Gothic folly standing on an island in the Rver Thames in Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

A recent summer afternoon walk through Christchurch Meadow and by the banks of the Thames and the Cherwell in Oxford brought me to Folly Bridge. There are Punts close to the bridge, Salters Steamers are nearby, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland began as a story told on a boating trip from Folly Bridge, and the Head of the River, a public house beside the bridge, has views of the bridge and the river.

The former bridge and ‘Bacon’s Tower’ were drawn by many artists, including the 12-year-old JMW Turner, before a new bridge was built in 1824-1827, designed by Ebenezer Perry (1779-1850), and the toll house was rebuilt in 1844.

But the truly eye-catching building on Folly Bridge is Caudwell’s Castle at No 5 on Folly Bridge, a pretty Gothic folly standing on an island in the Thames. It was built in 1849 for Joseph Caudwell (1809-1893), a wealthy but eccentric Oxford accountant and money-lender.

Caudwell was born at Harwell, south of Oxford, into the Caudwell family of Drayton Manor, near Abingdon. He lived a sad and isolated life, and before he could enjoy his new home for long, he found himself targeted by student pranksters and then arrested for attempted murder. He was subsequently convicted of perjury, fined one shilling and transported for seven years.

Caudwell’s Castle was originally known as North Hinksey House, and has also mistakenly been called Isis House. Caudwell may have first planned the house as a folly to echo the name of the bridge. It stands on the same island in the River Isis that once housed ‘Friar Bacon’s Study.’ The mediaeval philosopher and astronomer Roger Bacon (1214-1292) once lived in the tower, and it was this earlier building – and not Caudwell’s Castle, despite its appearance – that gave Folly Bridge its name.

Caudwell built his house on the island beside Folly Bridge in 1849, and decided to adorn it with follies, riotous brickwork, metal and stone statues and crenellations. The rooftop statue of Atlas was once bent beath the weight of a globe, but the globe has not survived and Atlas now stands with a look of permanent surprise.

Caudwell’s Castle and Folly Bridge on an island in the Rver Thames in Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The house is built in red and grey brick, with battlements, and wrought iron balconies, it has Coade stone statues in niches that add an ecclesiastical flavour to its castellated appearance. It is a three-storey in parts, and four storeys in other parts. There are sash windows, glazing bars, French windows and much decorative brickwork, and the faux battlements means the roof is not visible from the street.

Caudwell tried to make his castle appear more secure, if not foreboding, placing cannons in the forecourt, pointing out across the river. But the castle and its defences were not impregnable and Caudwell thwarted a number of attempts to breach his defences.

Those students were undeterred until one night when a dramatic student jape backfired. In the early hours of 26 June 1851, Caudwell heard a commotion outside, and opened his bedroom window to see four undergraduates in dinner jackets tying a rope around one of his ornamental cannons, trying to drag it into the river.

Caudwell was enraged. He fired a pistol a pistol at the students and hit one of the miscreants. Caudwell was reported to the police and was charged with having ‘unlawfully and maliciously’ shot at Alexander Henry Ross ‘with intent to do him grievous bodily harm’.

Caudwell’s Castle is built in red and grey brick, with battlements, wrought iron balconies and Coade stone statues in niches (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Caudwell was tried at the Berkshire summer assizes the following month. The prosecution argued he was aware the students were only engaged in a harmless prank and that he had no right under law to recklessly endanger the life of another.

Andrew Henry Ross, the student he shot, was an old Etonian and an undergraduate at Christ Church College. Ross and his friends were cross-examined during the trial and described their activities that night, much to the amusement of people sat in the courtroom.

Ross claimed Caudwell fired at him from an upstairs window ‘without any notice or intimation.’ But he admitted they had also let out Caudwell’s dog and chased it up the street, before returning and attempting to remove the bone from the mouth of the lion statues in Caudwell's garden.

One student described to laughter how he had gone back to Caudwell’s after the incident and thrown stones at a window, before saying he was considering the law as a profession. Another admitted they had made attempts at Caudwell’s lions on a previous occasion, and he had warned he would shoot them if they did not desist.

Caudwell said he was acting in self-defence, defending his home from a violent attack. He admitted firing at Ross but claimed he only aimed at his hand. His defence counsel tried to discredit the four students, claiming they took part in a ‘disgusting outrage on society,’ bringing disaster upon themselves. He said they had been ‘luxuriating’ at a cricket supper at the Maidenhead, smoking cigars and drinking beer, and claimed they were set on ‘wanton mischief’ to gratify ‘a morbid and wicked disposition.’

The judge spoke in disapproving tones of the flippant way the students conducted themselves during the trial. But he reminded the jury that no attempt had been made to break into Caudwell’s home or to threaten him or his family with violence.

The jury was sympathetic to Caudwell. After deliberating for an hour and a quarter, the jurors found Caudwell not guilty and he was acquitted.

But Caudwell’s time in court was not over: he was tried the next day on an entirely unrelated charge arising from £65 in unpaid bills owed to Thomas Golding, an Oxford shopkeeper.

Caudwell claimed he was assisting an ex-clergyman, the Revd Charles James, who had fled Oxford some months earlier after being charged with deserting his wife and family. Caudwell said he had helped James find a new position as a curate at Saint Thomas Church, Preston, Lancashire.

But James was in trouble in Preston too. He was found to have seduced and run away with the daughter of his church sexton. When he was tracked down, he was found in bed with both the sexton's daughter and his own 10 or 12-year-old son.

Golding tried to sue Caudwell, who was then charged with perjury arising from an affidavit in which he claimed part of his debt had been repaid. He was convicted of perjury, was fined once shilling and was sentenced to seven years transportation. He eventually died in Boulogne in France in October 1893.

As for Alexander Henry Ross (1829-1888), the undergraduate shot by Caudwell, he later became a barrister, a magistrate and a Conservative politician. He was the son of Charles Ross and grandson of Charles Cornwallis, 2nd Marquess Cornwallis. He was the Conservative MP for Maidstone from 1880 until he died in 1888.

Apollo without his globe and some of the statues in niches in Caudwell’s Castle (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Some local legends claim his house became an upmarket brothel or bordello in the late 1800s, and that the statues are modelled on the sex workers.

Robert Gunther (1869-1940), the historian of science, bought 5 Folly Bridge in 1911. This made the river central to his life, and he was a pioneer of environmental conservation in Oxford.

It is said the actor Peter Cushing and more than one famous author later lived there. However, there is no evidence to support rumours that it was once a base for the Bullingdon Club when Boris Johnson and David Cameron were members, or that this was the venue for the supposed incident involving David Cameron and a pig’s head.

Caudwell’s Castle was divided into flats in the late 20th century. The middle flat, with a long balcony on the side, was owned by a former Conservative MP. A former resident recalls how the floor was so seriously slanted that a ball could roll down it and that the plumbing was a disaster. Other residents included two successful non-fiction authors and the owner of a nearby restaurant and art gallery, while the ground floor was an Air B&B for a time.

On the ground floor below Atlas, the original front door is now bricked up, with a small fenced off forecourt in front of it. Caudwell’s cannons have never been replaced, but it seems the castle was never again besieged.

No 4 Folly Bridge Island was built in 1875 and designed by the Oxford architect George Shirley (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

The island’s most recent building is an octagonal tower in strikingly bright yellow. It houses three artists’ studios, and from the riverside balconies, there are views of the pleasure boats, the jetties, and the diners on the pontoon at the restaurant below.

Next to Caudwell’s Castle, No 4 Folly Bridge Island was built in 1875 and designed by the Oxford architect George Shirley. It originally had a steeply-pitched roof, but the upper storey was rebuilt and crenelated in 1974.

Last year, on 23 May 2023, the writer and broadcaster Gyles Brandreth unveiled a plaque at the south side of Folly Bridge on the wall of the Folly restaurant to commemorate the boat trip of 4 July 1862, when Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) first told the story of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to Alice Liddell and her two sisters, the daughters of the Dean of Christ Church.

It is the first permanent memorial to Carroll and his book in the city. But, perhaps, more about Lewis Carroll, Alice and that boat in the weeks to come or near that anniversary on 4 July.

A plaque at the Folly restaurant commemorates the boat trip when Lewis Carroll first told the Alice stories to Alice Liddell (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Enjoying the bridges and boats on the Cherwell and Isis in ‘the city of dreaming spires’

Punts on the River Cherwell at Christ Church Meadow in Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

Despite living within commuting distance of Oxford for some time now and within the Diocese of Oxford, I am still familiarising myself with ‘the city of dreaming spires’.

The Victorian poet Matthew Arnold described the beauty of university buildings in his poem Thyrsis, in which he describes Oxford as ‘the city of dreaming spires’ because of its architecture:

And that sweet city with her dreaming spires,
She needs not June for beauty’s heightening.

‘The city of dreaming spires’ … a view of Oxford across Christ Church Meadow (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

I still do not feel as familiar with Oxford as I do with Cambridge, where I have studied at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, staying at Sidney Sussex College over the years. I have also preached and lectured in Sidney Sussex and in Christ’s College, and feel I know my way around Cambridge, its colleges, churches and college chapels, its bookshops, cafés and bars, its open spaces and its hidden corners.

In Cambridge, I know my way along the Backs and by the boat clubs, and I wonder whether some day I am ever going to become as familiar with similar walks in Oxford.

The Cherwell and the Thames – known as the Isis in Oxford – run through the city, and walking through Christ Church Meadow, along the river banks and by the boat houses one recent sunny afternoon I too was captivated by those views that have made Oxford ‘the city of dreaming spires.’

The college boat houses are clustered together in Oxford, lined in a row along Boathouses Walk (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Both Cambridge and Oxford are also cities of bicycles, bridges and boats.

As in Cambridge, the college boats houses are clustered together in Oxford, lined in a row along Boathouses Walk: Saint Anne’s, Saint Hugh’s and Wadham; Saint Edmund Hall; Corpus Christi and Saint John’s; Jesus and Keble; Brasenose and Exeter; Oriel, Lincoln and Queen’s; Baliol and Osler House; Merton and Worcester; Linacre; and Christ Church. Facing them on the opposite bank are: University College, and more college boat houses as one continues south.

In all, there are 40 boat clubs within the university: four representative university clubs (Oxford University Boat Club, Oxford University Women’s Boat Club, Oxford University Lightweight Rowing Club and Oxford University Women’s Lightweight Rowing Club) and 36 college boat clubs, with over 3,000 active members in total. The 40 college and university clubs together form the confederation known as Oxford University Rowing Clubs (OURCs).

Jubilee Bridge, the newest bridge in Oxford, was built by Christ Church in 2014 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Nearby, I crossed the Jubilee Bridge, the newest bridge in Oxford. It was built by Christ Church and links Christ Church Meadow with the college’s playing fields over the River Cherwell.

The 28 metre-long steel bridge opened 10 years ago on 20 June 2014. But only Christ Church students and staff may cross it fully, and a gate blocks access to the sports ground side of the river.

This riverside setting gave rise to the name Oxenford in the Anglo-Saxon period.

All along the Cherwell and Isis, at this time of summer, the water is busy with punts and river cruises and with rowers and scullers practising their strokes.

Folly Island and Folly Bridge, a stone bridge over the River Thames (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

It was a June afternoon, I had walked almost a full circle in a clockwise direction when I found myself back at Folly Island and Folly Bridge, the stone bridge over the River Thames carrying the Abingdon Road south from the centre of Oxford.

The bridge is in two parts that are separated by an island and stands at the site of the ford over which oxen could be driven across the Isis. Until the late 17th century, the bridge was known as South Bridge, and formed part of a long causeway known as Grandpont that stretched along almost the full length of Abingdon Road.

In the 13th century, the philosopher and alchemist Roger Bacon (1214-1292) lived and worked at ‘Friar Bacon’s Study,’ which stood across the north end of the bridge until 1779, when it was removed to widen the road.

Samuel Pepys visited Bacon's study in 1669, noting: ‘So to Friar Bacon’s study: I up and saw it, and gave the man 1s[hilling].’ Later, the place was painted by a precocious 12-year-old JMW Turner. The bridge was rebuilt in 1825-1827 to designs by Ebenezer Perry (1779-1850), a little-known architect.

Punts and river tours are available close to the bridge and Salters Steamers are there too. The Head of the River public house is next to the bridge to the north-east, with views of the bridge and river. It looks like an inviting place to begin or end my next riverside walk.

The Head of the River … a good place to begin or end riverside walks in Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland originated as a story first told by Lewis Carroll on a boating trip that began at Folly Bridge. But perhaps that is material for stories and other blog postings in the weeks to come.

Perhaps the most intriguing site at Folly Bridge is Caudwell’s Castle on Folly Bridge. It was built in 1849 by the eccentric Joseph Caudwell, who decorated and adorned it with follies, riotous brickwork, metal and stone statues, cast-iron balconies, decorative crenelations, French windows, and a rooftop statue of Atlas.

It is a folly that tells stories of intrigue, student pranks that backfired, shots in the dark, deceit, intrigue, raucous scenes in courtrooms, clerical misbehaviour, trials and perjury. But these are tales and stories for another evening too.

Five minutes by the river in Oxford (Patrick Comerford, 2024)