Oxford
— — the city Matthew Arnold called the dreaming spires.
Not only on a wall.
“A small English city built around a university older than most countries. Teaching has gone on at Oxford since around 1096, which makes it the oldest in the English-speaking world. Thirty-nine colleges, each with its own quad and chapel and library, knit into a centre you can cross on foot in twenty minutes. The Radcliffe Camera holds the middle, the Bodleian behind it, the spire of St Mary the Virgin above. The Thames runs along the western edge; the locals still call it the Isis there.
Oxford, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Oxford is a city in south-central England, in the county of Oxfordshire, about 90 kilometres northwest of London at the confluence of the Thames and the Cherwell. Its population is around 160,000. The University of Oxford, the oldest in the English-speaking world, has records of teaching from 1096 and grew rapidly after Henry II forbade English students from attending Paris in 1167. The university today comprises 39 self-governing colleges and six permanent private halls, woven together across a compact medieval centre that a visitor can cross on foot in twenty minutes.
The skyline that gave Matthew Arnold the phrase dreaming spires in his 1865 poem Thyrsis is mostly honey-coloured Cotswold limestone. The Radcliffe Camera, James Gibbs's circular library of 1748, anchors the central square; the Bodleian Library behind it has held a copy of every book published in Britain since 1610. The Sheldonian Theatre, Christopher Wren's first commission, opened in 1669. Christ Church Cathedral, twelfth century in origin, doubles as the college chapel — the only cathedral in England that is also a college chapel. Magdalen Tower above the Cherwell rings in May Morning each year on May 1.
The Oxford academic year follows three eight-week terms — Michaelmas from October, Hilary from January, Trinity from April — and the rhythms of the colleges still shape the city's calendar. Matriculation in October brings new undergraduates in subfusc through Radcliffe Square. May Morning, on May 1, opens with the Magdalen choir singing the Hymnus Eucharisticus from the top of the tower at six o'clock to a crowd on Magdalen Bridge below. Eights Week in late May fills the Isis with college rowing crews. The Christmas Encaenia honours degree ceremonies in late June close the year.