Great Expectations
The Official Magazine Britain|March - April 2017

Home to the oldest university in the English-speaking world, founded 850 years ago, Oxford is a city full of history, magic and intrigue?

Neil Jones
Great Expectations

Climb to the top of one of Oxford’s lofty viewpoints – Carfax clock tower, the Sheldonian Theatre, the University Church of St Mary the Virgin – and you’ll see the ‘dreaming spires’ still bravely pricking the skyline, long after Victorian poet Matthew Arnold first celebrated them in his 1866 poem Thyrsis.

In college and street, where black-gowned students scurry and bowler-hatted ‘Bulldogs’ prowl (a throwback to the university police), time may seem to have stood still. But while punting and genteel picnics on the river have yet to fall out of fashion, the oldest university in the English-speaking world has rarely rested on its laurels.

Recently ranked the world’s top university by London-based academic magazine Times Higher Education, through the centuries Oxford has produced an unrivalled 27 British prime ministers – St Hugh’s College graduate Theresa May being the latest – as well as at least 30 international leaders and 50 Nobel Prize winners. Famous Oxonians range from medieval scholar Roger Bacon and Elizabethan explorer Sir Walter Raleigh to writer Oscar Wilde and inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Movers and shakers: one and all.

There was some form of teaching here in the 11th century, however it was from the key date of 1167, when King Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris, that developments accelerated – making 2017 a notable 850th anniversary in Oxford’s foundation story.

この記事は The Official Magazine Britain の March - April 2017 版に掲載されています。

7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。

この記事は The Official Magazine Britain の March - April 2017 版に掲載されています。

7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。

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