Oxford Cathedral

I’ve been to Oxford a few times, once while working for British Telecom. Yes, they did send me around a lot of places in the UK. 

Oxford is the county town and the only city in Oxfordshire. It’s also the home of Oxford University, which is the oldest English speaking university in the world. Over the years, the university has grown to 39 colleges. in 1209, after a dispute between the townspeople and some academics and students, some academics moved to Cambridge and created Cambridge University.

Oxford cathedral is unique in that it is both a Cathedral as well as the chapel for Christ’s College. Plus, the building is integrated into he college. It’s also one of England’s smallest cathedrals.

It started life as the church for St Frideswide’s Priory (patron saint of Oxford). In 1522, Cardinal Wolsey took it over as he’d selected it as the site for his college to be named Cardinal College. After his fall, Henry VIII took it over and work stopped on the college and chapel until he refounded them as Christ’s College in 1532 then in 1546, he made the chapel the cathedral for the newly created diocese of Oxford.

The nave, choir, main tower and transepts are late Norman with features from Norman to Perpendicular style.

Entrance to the cathedral is via the college and the £15 (2021 prices) includes a tour of some of the college facilities. It’s probably best to visit outside of term times as there are times when visitors can’t visit parts of the college as they’re in use.

Even though I have brought all of my camera equipment with me on this trip, I decided to only use my 16-55 mm lens as an experiment. It did a good job, probably, because the cathedral is so small.

Here are some photos of the college.

Here are some photos of the cathedral.