Turl Street and Exeter College

Cross The Broad and walk alongside the wrought-iron railings that are topped by the sculpted busts of Roman philosophers. You will pass by a few stores selling Oxford memorabilia. Twenty years ago, I purchased a bone china cup and a sweatshirt, both of which I am very proud to say I still possess. You may also purchase post cards, college ties, mounted and framed pen and ink drawings of the colleges and other city landmarks. Make a left on Turl Street, sometimes called “The Turl”.

Turl Street:

You will have left the bustle of The Broad behind and will find yourself on a quiet, narrow street looking straight ahead at the tall spire of the Institute of Science. Turl Street is the location of three colleges but we will visit only one— Exeter College, the college that I attended in 1987 during an international graduate summer school. Most Oxford colleges are open from 2pm till 5pm daily, but do check the large notice boards placed right outside the Porter’s Lodge for correct opening hours.

Exploring Exeter College:

 The entrance to Exeter College is on your left hand side. Assuming the college is open to visitors, you go through the ancient low wooden door, past the Porter’s Lodge on your right and enter the beautiful Quadrangle. All Oxford colleges are constructed around the concept of the quadrangle or ‘Quad’ formed by the four walls of the residence rooms that house their undergraduates. You will see the steps leading to the spectacular Dining Hall on your right. This part of the college, unfortunately, is no longer open to visitors, though it is worth entering a dining Hall in Christ Church or some other college that charges an admission fee to permit visitors to wander in.

Oxford undergraduates dine “in Hall” at long tables lit by dim lamps. The exquisite wooden paneled walls are usually decorated with oil portraits of each college’s benefactors. At the very end of the hall is the Head Table or High Table, reserved exclusively for the Fellows or professors of the college who are known as “Dons”. When all the diners are assembled inside, the Hall Steward bangs thrice on the wooden floor with a heavy staff and the dons troop in together and take their seats at High Table. Grace is always said in Latin by the Master of the College who presides at dinner, after which pupils take their seats and the “scouts” come in bearing trays of food. For a good visual idea of what the atmosphere is like while a meal is in progress in Hall, do see the Harry Potter films.

Whereas the dining Hall of Exeter College is closed, visitors are free to wander in the Chapel  (left) whose entrance is on the left hand corner of the Quad. You will be struck immediately by the general air of antiquity that pervades this sacred space. If you are fortunate enough to be present while an organ recital is in progress or while a rehearsal is being carried out, do linger for a few minutes to get a sense of the majesty of ecclesiastical music as it sounds when it echoes around the Gothic walls of an Oxford chapel. Exeter’s Chapel is distinctive for the stunning mosaics that run around the main altar forming the features of the Apostles.

On your right hand side, when facing the main altar, you will see a magnificent larger-than-life size tapestry (left) depicting “The Adoration of the Magi” executed by William Morris, one of the best-known alumni of Exeter. Morris entered Exeter to train to become a minister of the church but he realized soon enough that he had a very special calling. Together with his friend and fellow-student Edward Bryne-Jones, he founded the Aesthetic Movement of the late 19th century and in the Art for Art’s Sake School of Thought that followed, the two friends influenced the course of art criticism for over a century. Morris spent his entire life in the Oxford area, buying and living in a house called Kelmscott Manor, close to Oxford, where he founded a printing press that brought out almost all his designs and patterns in wallpaper and stationery and printed his vast number of images of flowers, fruits and birds.

Exeter Chapel is also the setting for the suspenseful end of one of the episodes in the Inspector Morse series in which the wife of the Master of the College played by Geoffrey Palmer threatened to throw herself down from the organ loft after she discovers that her husband had abused their daughter when she was a child. The outside of the chapel is also the setting of the scene in the final episode of the series during which Morse suffers a sudden stroke, is picked up by Lewis and rushed to the Radcliff Infirmary which is located on Woodstock Road in the city.

After you have exited the chapel, make a left, walk alongside the west wing of the quad and turn left into a narrow opening that will lead you to the Margary Quadrangle that adjoins the main Quad. This addition, a more modern side of the college, has a contemporary sculpture in the center of the Quad and was built in 1964. The room I occupied at Exeter College during the summer of 1987 is located on the second floor of one of the buildings that comprise the Margary Quadrangle. It is a far cry from the original building whose construction began under Walter de Stapeldon, Bishop of Exeter in 1314. In the picture above above, I am posing in the Margary Quadrangle with the room I occupied at Exeter College behind me on the second floor.

Before we exited the Quadrangle, my friend Annalisa Oboe and I who had been classmates at Exeter College in 1987, stopped, for old times’ sake, to take pictures outside the Junior Common Room (right) and the Fellows Gardens (below left) where we had once hung out together. You can imagine how nostalgic this return to Exeter was for the two of us.

You will exit Exeter College through its main entrance and will find yourself on Turl Street once again. Right opposite is the entrance to Jesus College, a smaller college that is renowned for the fact that T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) won a scholarship to the college in 1904. Make a left and keep walking straight down Turl Street past the entrance to Lincoln College on your left. This college is associated with alumnus J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy who met his close friend C.S. Lewis, author of The Chronicles of Narnia while they were both undergrads at Lincoln.

Continue Walking Tour of Radcliff Square