We travelled with our 11-year-old Kidsetter to Oxfordshire in the United Kingdom. He has a love all things history and was astounded by the historic ambience of the entire Oxford City. Admittedly, Oxford had turned on it’s rainy weather and still this wasn’t going to prevent us from being swept up in all of Oxfordshire’s beauty.
We had booked a premium free walking tour of oxford university & Harry Potter. Our tour guide named Diana had exceptional knowledge discussing the universities history, traditions, anecdotes of famous students and student experience of Oxford University and Oxford City.
We entered inside Oxford University buildings including one of the oldest colleges. Diana taught us about the admission process and the specific way of teaching in Oxford university. Oxford is the oldest university in the English-speaking world with evidence of teaching dating back to 1096.
There are 38 colleges across the university the first established in the 13th century.
We were fortunate enough to also visit sites that were the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland, Narnia, Lord of the Rings and Inspector Morse.
Naturally we were very keen to visit the infamous School of Divinity, the Medieval Lecture Hall where Harry Potter was filmed.
The Divinity school was built between 1424 and 1483, and is one of the oldest surviving purpose-built rooms in Oxford University. It is known as the Divinity School because Theology, or Divinity, was taught in this room and examinations were held here up until the 15th century.
We also visited the famous Bodleian library and Oxford libraries are some of the most celebrated in the world, not only for their incomparable collection of books and manuscripts but also for their buildings some of which have remained in continuous use since the middle ages. Our Kidsetter was so enthralled. He is an avid reader and was in awe to be surrounded by so many books.
Our tour guide named Martina advised us as to why books were previously chained to the bookshelf. Scholars began to come from all over Europe to read the books. These were so valuable they were not permitted to leave the reading rooms – even King Charles I, who asked to borrow a book was refused.
Duke Humfrey’s library was a dark cold place to study as fire was, and still is, forbidden within the building. In fact anyone using the library still has to swear an oath today to not ‘bring into the Library or kindle therein any fire or flame’.
Oxford is not only aesthetically a stunning city but also oozes an ambience of learning is fun and something that should be pursued at any age. Our Kidsetter told us that one day he would like to study at Oxford. We replied “Work hard, dream big, reach for the stars and you might even land on the moon (or at Oxford University)” 🙂 How fabulous that visiting Oxford can inspire Kidsetters alike to take their learnings to another level.
