Oxford

We took a two hour walking tour of Oxford today with Footprints Tours. Our guide was Tom, who was born and bred Oxford (Town & Gown) and if I closed my eyes it was as though Hugh Grant was talking to me ... I'm a sucker for a posh Oxford accent!

Our tour took us past the colleges (where the likes of Lewis, Tolkien and Carroll stayed and wrote), into St Mary's church, to the Bodleian Library, the Radcliffe Camera ('camera' meaning obscured or hidden), and Tom Tower. Most of all the tour was about the stories and anecdotes of the people who have lived and studied here for the past 1000 years - all told with that fabulous self-effacing humour the Brits are so good at.

At one point, we stopped to look at the Bridge of Sighs and the story was told about another queer Oxford tradition. When students graduate, they leave the court yard and stand in front of the Bridge of Sighs and jump as high as they can for a photo. No one knows why or when it began. But our guide got us to have a go ...

We finished by the river and had a picnic lunch before wandering around the rest of Oxford on our own. We enjoyed spending time in Blackwells Bookstore - this place was massive, and visiting the History of Science Museum. The things on display were stunningly elegant - I imagine I would get distracted from mathematical study just looking at the beautifully crafted pieces. Finally we made our way to The Thirsty Meeple Board Games Cafe where we had afternoon tea and played a game of Medici. A great finish to a great day out.

We are now in London until Tuesday when we fly out in the evening.

Balliol College, one of 3 claiming to be the oldest in the UK (depending on how one chooses to define "oldest").

Cake decorating in the Covered Market.

The spot where the Archbishop of Canterbury was burnt at the stake by Mary I because he would not renounce his Protestant faith.  Apparently he was brought to Oxford to be burned because, as an ex-Cambridge student, he was less likely to have a sympathetic audience.

Gargoyle love!  Our guide described the right-most as "ET with a wig".

Bridge of Sighs.  Built two years after Cambridge built a similar structure in a piece of fairly typical one-upmanship.

School of Astronomy and Public Speaking - an interesting combination

The clock was showing the incorrect time, so was in the process of being wound forward.  That lead to the interesting experience of hearing the quarter-hours chimed every 30 seconds or so.

Christ Chrurch college gardens.  Originally "Cardinal College", its founded fell afoul of the King in the Reformation.  Renamed "King Henry VIII's College" by Henry VIII, which was a little too blatantly self-promoting, it was changed to its current name 12 years later.

Picnic

Old board games we found in a game store we stumbled across in our walking

At Blackwells Bookstore :)  Found memories of dodgy made-up debating quotes from high school.

This is the basement level - well some of it anyway. Three levels of books above this..

The last Lonely Planet guide we will need!

Musuem of History of Science. Whilst in there a cavalcade with the King and Queen of Spain travelled past, hence the police everywhere.

On the left, spheres to help in the teaching of 3D trigonometry.  Central front, "miniatures" of military formations, designed to be moved around a map like a wargame.

Microscopes

A large (about a metre across) globe with an engraving describing it being given as a gift in the 1750's.  Interestingly, it shows the east coast of Australia - discovered in the 1770's.  The assumption is that the original maps on the surface of the globe were replaced in the 1780s, that being cheaper that manufacturing a whole new globe.

Many different calculators.

The microphone used to capture the first pre-announced live broadcast of public entertainment: Dame Nellie Melba in 1920.

At Meeple Cafe

The mother of all round-a-bouts. Ken has nailed it now, yay!  Note that only _one_ of these lanes (the 5th of eight) enables us to access our accommodation in London.

Plague Village & Ring Kichard the Thrid

We drove to the picturesque village of Eyam this morning and began our walking tour of the medieval village at the Eyam Museum. This was a small but well curated museum detailing the events leading to, and the progress of, the outbreak of the plague in Eyam.  Of course, the plague affected many places, but Eyam stands out due to the selfless decision made to quarantine themselves from the rest of the world around them in an attempt to stop the plague spreading. The people of the town were also excellent at record keeping which made for interesting reading at the museum - it was possible to trace just how the plague entered, and spread through, the village.

Sophia - look! A plague doctor mask!

This was a really clear infographic displaying by household the men and women lost to the plague (in red), those who survived (in green), those who died but not from the plague (blue), and those whose fate was unclear (yellow).  Although the mortality rate seems awful, it is strongly suspected that there were just as many households who were not affected at all; they do not show up on the records.

Love the logo for the museum

On our walk, we came across a spit roast for an annual sheep roasting event!

Ground zero for plague deaths in the village.  Lower class people would strip the clothes from those who died in London and ship them to tailors in rural areas.  Those tailors would then use the old clothes as a template for what was now fashionable in London.  In this case, "those who died in London" probably died of the plague, and had clothes infested with rats.  The first symptoms in the tailor's live-in apprentice came within 2 days of a new package arriving.

Only one citizen who died of plague was buried within the church grounds. All others were buried by family near their own homes.  In one case, a woman buried her husband and all six children in the space in 8 days.

Plague Window in the church

Celtic cross in church graveyard

The gates of the Eyam primary school, with the nursery rhyme "Ring o' Rosy" along the gate - cute and creepy

Rhubarb and custard icecream

Afterward we drove to Leicester and visited the King Richard III excavation site and museum. https://kriii.com/about-the-centre/
This was super. The remains of Richard III were discovered on the site of the Greyfriars Friary Church, which was a council carpark up til the excavation - I thought it was funny that he got stuck in a carpark and it took him forever to get out!

Turns out he had scoliosis. Well, that, and other posthumous injuries to his skull were discovered upon exhuming his corpse. There was a section of the museum devoted to his family tree - all the twists and turns included, a section about the battle that saw his life ended, another exhibition about how he has been portrayed - evil villain or just misunderstood (he so totally had those two young boys murdered in the Tower of London), and (probably my favourite part) a section devoted to the archaeology, discovery and exhumation of Richard III. The boys were fascinated to read that a descendent of Richard's was found for DNA testing in confirming the bones were those of the King.
Also, I kept secretly giggling as the words "Lord Farquaad" ran through my head hehe!

Villain or just misunderstood?

Part of the discovery exhibition.  A model of the skeleton is on display, with a video demonstrating the injuries.  A separate model demonstrated the extent of his scoliosis - pretty damned advanced!

The boys and Ricky III

 Before heading to our stop for the night, we had Japanese for dinner at Bonzai Sushi - absolutely delicious.

Tomorrow we head to Oxford for a walking tour!

Fountains Abbey

Here are some beautiful photos from our visit to Fountains Abbey. A gorgeous sunny day!

Another abandoned abbey ...

... but set in the surroundings of a World Heritage-listed Gardens (Studley Royal Water Gardens).

We spent a good 3 hours walking the grounds ...

... and eating a packed lunch in some glorious sun.

Abandoned swan egg.

The landscape was sculptured to allow picturesque views of the abbey.

100 years later, the Abbey itself was acquired by the Gardens ...

so the primary objective of the Abbey is to "look beautiful", rather than be excavated for historical value.

Compared to all the other abbeys though, Fountains is still in _excellent_ knick, with all the original buildings' walls mostly intact for at least a single storey, and mostly for two or three.  So a much better sense of scale and awe.

The was a small museum on site though.

And, most importantly for the boys, somewhere to blow off steam.

Then a visit to The Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds. I find arms, loss of life and the greed of leaders who wage war tiring among other feelings not fit for a travel diary. I'll leave this end of the blog to Ken ...

Thanks lover.  In short, a wonderful museum.  Glad we travelled to a different town to get to it; sorry that we only had a couple of hours (and consequently missed a good proportion of the exhibitions).

Costumed interpreter talking us through the weapons, armour and tactics of the English Civil War.  The armour in the background, full body cuirassier armour was the end of the line for armour development: able to absorb multiple gunshot wounds at point-blank range.

Ben practicing his sabre technique.

... and discovering just how bloody heavy the old cuirassier pistols were.  Surprisingly, it took them a hundred years or so to discover that making the pistol unfeasibly long did _not_ improve accuracy: none of them could reliably hit a man-sized target beyond 10 metres.

Agincourt.  How to lose a battle despite having better weaponry and more soldiers.

Chain mail armour, grilled visors.  Yep, World War One.  Astonishing that these devices are essentially identical to those from 2000 years ago.

World conquerors: the Asiatic Horse Archers - Mongols in this case.

... and one of their many descendants: in this case, Mughal cavalry.

We stumbled across our English Civil War interpreter choreographing and rehearsing a spear versus sword combat.

And Lord of the Rings swords!