A LONG with the Bodleian Library and the Covered Market, one of my main reasons for staying in Oxford is the University Parks. Despite its name, the Parks is, in both senses, singular, just one outstanding expanse, first laid out in 1864. Enjoyed by Gown and Town alike, its 70 or so acres encompass groves, gravelled walks, areas of garden both informal and intensively cultivated, sweeps of turf both long and shorn and sports pitches.A LONG with the Bodleian Library and the Covered Market, one of my main reasons for staying in Oxford is the University Parks. Despite its name, the Parks is, in both senses, singular, just one outstanding expanse, first laid out in 1864. Enjoyed by Gown and Town alike, its 70 or so acres encompass groves, gravelled walks, areas of garden both informal and intensively cultivated, sweeps of turf both long and shorn and sports pitches.
In summer, it’s the Elysian Fields. The knock of cricket or croquet ball on bat or mallet counterpoints the laughter and plash of punters on its willow-draped boundary the River Cherwell. The air is perfumed with newmown grass, mock orange, Fabiana, antique and species roses, heliotrope and Nicotiana.
Its visual delights range from classic herbaceous borders to subtropical bedding by way of shrubberies that summon the Far East and Mediterranean. Crowning all, the trees (some 1,600 of them, representing more than 250 species) appear to have been placed and posed by the world’s great landscape painters.
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