19 May: Oxford Shirk

SHIRE HORSE CENTER -- ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM

Oh my. Not one of the most successful days, I’m afraid – though there were a few high spots. I wish, I wish, I wish I’d been able to go to Oxford on a weekday. As it was, it was crowded and noisy and dirty and annoying and jarring and as far from anything Gaudy Night-ish than you can imagine.

Wait. I’m forgetting the Shire Horse Center, which had been exercising a fatal fascination for me every time I passed in on my way to and from Stratford. So I gave in and paid my money. There’s one born every minute.

It was no more than a petting zoo, and a poor petting zoo at that, with some listless chickens and pigs, an aviary full of budgies, and four surly shire geldings glowering in the far corners of their stalls. The only creatures that showed any enthusiasm for my presence were the goats, and that was only because they wanted to eat the buttons off my shirt. It was sad and shabby, and the only stop that was a waste of time in my entire stay.

So back to Oxford. The problem was, everything I wanted to see was only open for a few hours in the afternoon. As I was driving in, I saw the Ashmolean right away, which was numero uno of what I wanted to see, so I veered into the nearest parking garage, which had one space open, and I said, there I stay. Whatever’s in walking distance of here is what I’m seeing. Which sadly meant no Botanic Gardens or Museum of Natural History. Most of the college grounds were closed, but I had a peep into the quadrangle of Balliol before heading back to the Ashmolean.

And what a hodge podge it is – an ostrich egg painted with the Stuart arms, Venetian chopines, carvings made out of plumstones, Pocahontas’s dad’s cape (given to Tradescant pere by John Smith), spring-action Indian punch daggers, a Tartar saddle, a portrait of Elizabeth Woodville with a ruff the size of a flying saucer, a little box containing twelve ivory apostles, Guy Fawkes’ lantern, Henry the 8th’s hawking gloves and gear, the iron hat worn by Judge Bradshaw while passing sentence on Charles I (for fear of assassination) – a regular jumble sale of the precious, the peculiar and the mundane. Some surprising treasures in the other rooms – a Crivelli St. Catherine, every spike on her wheel lined with loving fidelity, a Triumph of Chastity wherein Chastity’s cart of frolicking nymphs is being pulled by two skinny and disgruntled unicorns). St. Nicholas Bari, flying in like Supermonk to protect sailors from shipwreck. An exquisite Bernardino Pinturricchio Madonna.

The Ashmolean has a fascinating attitude about its stuff – they put everything out, not just the treasures but all the crap they have in storage, so that you can pick out the treasures yourself. For the anthropological collections, they house the objects in cabinets with two layers – the upper one with captions for grown-ups, the lower one with captions for kids.

Tonight I was scheduled for dinner in the Oak Room, Ettington’s official restaurant. I thought seven pm was a reasonable hour, but I was entirely alone in dining room. Entirely alone, minus the eight staff members with nothing to do but watch me negotiate the appetizers without dropping any goat cheese on my lap. Entertaining for all of us, no doubt.

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