Oxford: St. Hugh's College for the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Conference

Well, three weeks of silence, but I have been so busy having adventures that it has been difficult to record them. Upon arriving back in Newcastle, I set off on the 3rd of January to deliver a paper at the British Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies Conference in Oxford. I arrived at 2:30pm and took off, footing it round as many of the colleges as I could. Here are some photos of the first day...

 The Martyrs' Memorial, in honor of Thomas Cranmer, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley who were burned for their Protestant faith.

 The Radcliffe Camera

 Magdalen College and Chapel...

 C. S. Lewis' rooms in the New College building of Magdalen...

 More of Magdalen, Lewis' old haunts...

The mill stream behind New College, Magdalen.

 The only memorial left to Lewis in all of Magdalen. No mention of Narnia, only some obscure poem. It is almost as if they wish to forget him.

 Oxford Botanical Gardens... one of J. R. R. Tolkien's favorite haunts.

 The evening sun came out just as I exited the Gardens and headed towards the medieval college of Merton, oldest in all of Oxford...

The chapel at Merton College, home to many medievalists, most notably, J. R. R. Tolkien. The twilight upon all of his favorite trees in the quadrangles and parks of the college transported me to my imaginative cradle for his writings and the many sunsets of my childhood in Wheatland, Indiana, where I first became aware of my natural surroundings through his mythical rhetoric.

 Leaving Merton College and going towards the Radcliffe Camera...

 The original stones where the three martyrs were burned, a testimony to sacrifice in the cause of Jesus Christ...

 Off to the Eagle and Child ("Bird and Baby"), home of the informal literary society called the Inklings (Lewis, Tolkien, Barfield, Dyson, Williams, etc.)...

 Across the street is the Lamb & Flag, where the Inklings just as frequently visited...

 Lewis

 Tolkien