Steve and Kathy's Adventure: Lunch with Lewis, Potter for Tea

Every Tuesday morning, from 1939 to 1962, a group of friends including C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and Charles Williams met at The Eagle and Child pub in Oxford (aka the Bird and the Baby) met to drink beer and to discuss the books that they were writing.

Saturday morning, we set out for Oxford to visit the Lewis and Tolkien sights. We even managed to see a little Harry Potter.

After stopping at the TI to get a map and walking tour, our first stop was to find the Eagle and Child. We expected it to be mobbed, but since it was only 11 in the morning, we were the first customers.

We looked through all the little rooms. On the wall they have some old pictures of Tolkien, Lewis and Williams as well as a signed "membership" list of the Inklings, their informal literarry group.

According to Wikipedia, the group actually met in one of the smaller side rooms, called the Rabbit room, and it was there in 1950, that Lewis distributed the first copies of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to the group.

Earlier, they met more formally in Lewis' rooms at Magdalen college, where they took turns reading the books they were writing, including the Lord of the Rings and All Hallows Eve.

We decided to have brunch in the room with the memorabilia. Fish and Chips for me, of course.

Once refreshed, we set out to see the rest of Oxford. Our first stop was the Martyrs' Memorial, a monument to three Anglican bishops, Latimer, Ridley and Crammer who were burnt at the stake nearby by the Catholic Queen Mary in 1555.

The memorial looks like the steeple of a buried church, and Oxford students are reportedly fond of telling tourists to take the steps down to see the rest of the church. (The steps actually lead to the public toilets.)

We encountered no such students, but that was mostly because they were all so busy riding bikes all over town and trying to find a spare place to park them. This is the fence surrounding Magdalen Church.

Heading back into town, our first stop was the oldest building in Oxford, St. Michael at the North Gate. The tower of this Saxon (before William the Conqueror) church was put up in 1040.

The church adjoining the tower was rebuilt by the architect John Plowman in the 19th century.

Taking advantage of our senior status, we got a reduced admission to climb the tower. (The door to the prison cell where the Oxford Martyrs were held is one of the exhibits as you climb to the top.)

From the top, you can see all of Oxford. Handy little plaques on each side of the tower, help you to pick out the important colleges and other sights.

Down below, on Cornmarket Street, the hundreds of tourists looked like toys.

Climbing down, we soon joined them, heading north to the most famous of the colleges, Christ Church College. Along the pedestrian walkway, we stopped to chat with a group of Christians who had a book table and who were passing out tracts.

We got a reduced-price admission to enter the college grounds and looked at the famous "quad" area, that I'm sure you've seen in photos.

We visited the chapel and saw some of the other areas open to the public. Everywhere there were guards dressed in bowler hats stationed to make sure that the tourists didn't disturb the students who were in their last week of studies.

The "great hall" section of the college was closed until later in the afternoon, but we were told we could come back and just skip the line, using our same ticket. We decided to see that on our way back and made our way to the next college, Merton, where JRR Tolkien was a professor.

Like all the colleges, Merton is beautiful and (to us) peaceful. I'm not sure what it's like at the top of the term.

At Merton, we could pretty much wander where we wanted. As we walked down the halls surrounding the several different quad areas, you could hear the students talking in the different public rooms.

The only area that was off limits was the section that housed Tolkien's original rooms; we could see where they were (overlooking the Christ Church College medows), but couldn't go right up to them.

When we went into Merton Chapel, there were a group of students pulling the bells. As we left, they climbed down and headed for the local pub.

Our next stop was Magdalen College, CS Lewis' alma mater. Here's a picture of Kathy trying to get in the tower door. The tower was where the loyalist forces set up their defence during the English Civil War, expecting to get attacked by Cromwell, who never showed up.

Here's a picture of Kathy in front of the central quad of the old college at Magdalen.

CS Lewis' rooms were actually in New College, which is an uninteresting building in a really nice setting. Along the side of the building is Addison's Walk, a footpath that follows the River Cherwell.

Behind the building is the Deer Park, filled with tame deer. Students punt by on the Cherwell.

Addison's walk was a favorite of CS Lewis, and on the wall by the Deer Park is a plaque with one of his poems about the place.

Looking over the meadows would make you think that you were hundreds of miles from the city. Looking back at the old college, the views are picture-perfect.

The buildings are covered with climbing roses, and Kathy couldn't resist smelling them.

By now, the afternoon was almost over and it was time for tea. Since we didn't have time for that, though, we picked up a Coke in the Magdalen cafeteria (and watched some students who had just finished their exams try to get ready to head out punting). Then, we headed back to the train.

Before leaving Oxford, though, we had one last stop; the Christ Church College Great Hall. Why is that so famous, you wonder? Because it was used to film the Hogwarts dining hall in the Harry Potter movies.

This was the only place we encountered long, long lines. If you look closely at the picture, you'll see that those are not ghostly specters walking between the place settings, but a conveyor-belt line of Harry Potter fans (ourselves included).

It reminded me of visiting the graveyard in Paris, where the graves of Heloise and Abelard were deserted, while the grave of Jim Morrison was mobbed.

We were really lucky making train connections back to Bristol (although inexplicably the walk back to the train station was at least twice as far as the walk into town). We got back to Bristol around 6 pm.

Since this was our last night in Bristol, Karen Robinson's friend Jonathan Angel invited us out for a real English Pub dinner. He picked us up in his car and we got to drive across Brunel's famous Clifton Suspension Bridge, out to the Priory in the country.

Both Jonathan and Karen had the traditional Fish and Chips along with mushy peas. The portions were huge; the fish looked like small-battered marlins on the plate. I had steak and ale pie which was delicious and also enormous.