St Mary's Tower

St Mary's Tower
Foto di Rachel Bates

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St Mary's Tower

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When some Italian friends came to visit us last week, we found ourselves acting as unofficial tour guides to the sights of Oxford. Showing visitors around made me realize how little I actually know about the city, and I couldn't help but feel a bit ashamed of having paid so little attention and shown so little curiosity until now. 

Not that it really mattered, my friends weren't expecting me to dazzle and entertain. They were quite happy to stroll around the shops, sample some local ales in the pubs, and gaze up at the intricately carved sandstone facades of the university colleges. They weren't even bothered about seeing the inside of Christchurch College, a major tourist destination since parts of the Harry Potter series were filmed there, partly because entrance will set you back £15 a head, but also because so many of the buildings with their Gothic arches, vaults and flying buttresses seem like potential wizards' dwellings anyway.   

To get a better view, we decided to climb the tower of The University Church of St Mary the Virgin.  This is as good a place as any to start to learn more about the history of Oxford, having become the first university building in 1252. In 1555 St Mary's was at the centre of religious strife as the site of the trial of the Oxford Martyrs, three bishops who were burnt at the stake on the orders of Catholic Queen Mary I for their heretical Protestant views.

The tower is the oldest part of the church, dating from the 13th century. Access is via a series of flights of stairs past the mechanism of the clock with its cogs and springs, to some metal steps hidden among the roofs of the surrounding colleges, to reach the tight spiral staircase that winds its way round and round up the inside of the tower. Finally emerging dizzy and disorientated onto the narrow ledge protected by a stone balustrade that runs around the outside of the tower just below the spire, the breathtaking views of the Radcliffe Camera and Hertford and All Souls colleges were worth the climb. Those Gothic gargoyles certainly have a spectacular view.


act as = carry out a role usually done by someone else
as good a place as any = a place which is equally good as all other possible places
bishop = a head priest, usually in charge of a cathedral
bother (to not be bothered) = to give little importance to something, to not want to do something
breathtaking = so incredible as to stop the breath (figurative)
burnt at the stake = killed by being tied to a large piece of wood and set on fire
carved = a design cut into wood or stone
cogs and springs = Cog: a metal wheel with teeth. Spring: a spiral of metal which returns to its shape after being pulled.
couldn't help = to be unable to avoid something
dazzle = to amaze, to temporarily blind with bright lights
dizzy = to feel like you are rotating when you are standing still
dwelling = a place to live
facade = the front of a building
flight of stairs = a series of steps between two floors
gaze = to look with wonder
ledge = a narrow shelf on the side of a building or mountain
matter = to be important (it doesn't matter = it's not important)
round and round = turning in a circle repeatedly
sample = to try a selection
set you back = to cost (especially when something is expensive)
show visitors around (to show somebody around) = to guide someone new to a place
spire = a tall pointed roof or pinnacle on a church
staircase = a series of steps between two floors
strife = trouble
stroll = to walk in a relaxed way
trial = a legal process to establish guilt or innocence
vaults and flying buttresses = features typical of gothic architecture; arches supporting a roof, external arches supporting a wall
views = opinions
wind (to wind) = to take a direction with many curves and turns