Book for the Bodleian: The world-famous attraction wants your groups this winter
Whisper it quietly: The famous Bodleian library of Oxford is now open to groups.
The Bodleian is more than a library: it’s a collection of 40 libraries belonging to the University of Oxford. It’s the home of a staggering 12 million books – some of them outside the city, many of them underground – and, more than that, it’s in many ways the epicentre of the university.
A group can’t possibly visit all the colleges of Oxford – but they can visit the Bodleian, which is where all the colleges come together; it’s one of the most historic parts of the university; and it’s at the very heart of the city.
Today, a visit takes in the historic Schools Quadrangle, with access to the oldest part of the Bodleian – the magical Duke Humfrey’s Library – and the 1930s Weston Library across Broad Street. On the other side of the Quadrangle is the striking Radcliffe Camera, closed to visitors but Oxford’s second-most popular photo stop.
The history
The guided tour starts in a room that’s familiar to Harry Potter fans worldwide – it’s the Divinity School, Oxford’s first purpose-built lecture hall, and it doubles up as the Hospital Wing in the Harry Potter films. It’s fantastically beautiful, with fan-vaulted ceiling and a great many engraved bosses linking to the people who built (and funded) the University.
The guide gives each person an earpiece and takes the group upstairs to Duke Humfrey’s Library, the oldest part of the Bodleian – there’s no lift; access is by 30-something shallow steps. Why the earpiece? Because Duke Humfrey’s is still a working library (a reference library only – no taking the books out, even if you’re the king); the earpiece allows the guide to whisper secrets to the group, without disturbing any students.
The Humfrey in question was the first Duke of Gloucester, who first gifted the university 280 books and then built the library above the Divinity School to house them. This first library was purged of books during the Reformation in 1550, and the room languished empty for 50 years until Sir Thomas Bodley made it his mission to restore Duke Humfrey’s.
The glorious room you see today is Bodley’s work – and he did more than a simple restoration. Not only did he expand the library, including building the ‘Schools’ (Oxford parlance for lecture and exam rooms) of the Quadrangle, but since then, a copy of every book published in England has been legally required to be deposited in the Bodleian.
The tour
The tour gives you all this information in an incredibly compelling way. You’re standing in an ornate, ancient library, inhaling the indescribable smell of fantastically old books, some of which are still chained up to protect them. The guide is whispering in your ear. And every now and then a thoroughly modern student walks past on their way to pore over a hefty tome.
But it wasn’t always this appealing: With no heating until the 1840s, and no artificial lighting until the 1920s, only four or five students a day would visit.
Then it’s back downstairs, where the group can linger awhile in the Divinity School and the Guide gives them the facts – about the architecture, about how students were examined when paper was very expensive (through verbal sparring in Latin, apparently), and about the room’s role in Harry Potter and Inspector Morse. It’s not used often by the University these days, but it only costs £600 an hour to hire for weddings…
There are two more rooms to explore on the tour – Convocation House, the former meeting place of the University’s legislative body; and Chancellor’s Court, where students charged with misdemeanours were tried (and usually let off, thanks to their privileged status).
Our tour ends in the shop, which has a fine range of unusual book-themed gifts.
The Weston
We then hopped across Broad Street to the Weston Library, a 1930s addition to the Bodleian and its modern heart. This is an unusual building, designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, which looks like it has three storeys but actually has 11 (most of them underground). Groups can dine or have coffee here, and perhaps see the dreaming spires of Oxford from its rooftop terrace.
There are also two exhibitions to see: The Bodleian Treasures exhibition, which displays the Magna Carta, the manuscript of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and Tolkien’s illustrations from The Hobbit; and the temporary exhibition, which regularly changes topic – when we visited it was on ‘Volcanoes’; an exhibition on Jane Austen is coming in June.
‘New for us’
The libraries and the guided tour are very well established attractions in Oxford, but the groups market is a new one for the Bodleian. Alice Ogilvie, Head of Venue Service, is quite frank about why the Bodleian wants your groups. “We're looking to get groups in during the winter months,” she says.
“We tend to be very busy with individual tourists over the summer, but if organisers had a group desperate to come then, they would of course be welcome to let us know and we’ll do our best to accommodate them.”
The groups offer comprises a range of tours in different lengths, priced for groups of 13, ranging from £70 on a 30-minute mini tour, taking in Duke Humfrey’s and Divinity School; to £200 for the standard tour, which we had, plus souvenir book and coffee and pastries; to £280 for the 90-minute extended tour, which visits Radcliffe Camera as well.
Self-guided visits, priced per person, can also be booked.
As the groups offer is so new, however, the Bodleian is keen to get feedback from groups. “We’re very interested to hear whether it'll work for you,” Alice told the assembled GTOs at the launch. “Have a look at the timings and let us know if it works; it's all quite new for us.”
While you’re in Oxford…
The best ways to see Oxford and take in its acres of history are on foot, or by sightseeing bus.
We did both: Our walking tour of the city was led by a Green Badge guide, who quickly revealed he studied at Cambridge (but prefers Oxford). We took the Oxford Highlights Tour, which only takes an hour so is ideal for groups with more limited mobility.
The two-hour-long University and City Tour offers a more thorough introduction to the city, and there are also special-interest tours – Harry Potter and Alice in Wonderland; CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien; and Inspector Morse, Lewis and Endeavour. All are available from Experience Oxfordshire.
Then there’s the City Sightseeing bus tour. It’s the usual thing: Audio commentary via headphones. This is probably the best way of guiding your group around the many fine university buildings. City Sightseeing buses are available for private hire for groups.
Blenheim Palace
Blenheim Palace is just a few miles out of Oxford, and an exciting big-budget attraction for coach tours to the city.
It’s a pricey one, but group rates see more than a third of the normal admission price slashed off, to £15.30pp – and it’s reduced even further in low season, to £12.70pp in January-March.
The seat of the Dukes of Marlborough, Blenheim is one of Britain’s most famous stately homes thanks to its Churchill connection, and one of the most beautiful too.
The State Rooms are currently playing host to the exhibition ‘Passion for Fashion’, exploring 300 years of clothing style, which adds a little more context to the rooms. The outfits displayed relate to the history of the Marlboroughs, helping to bring generations of the famous family to life – a family that counts Sir Winston Churchill and Princess Diana among its members.
The state rooms are as grand as you'd expect, with Hawksmoor carvings, Van Dyke paintings and a series of tapestries commissioned by and depicting Churchill's hero, the first Duke of Marlborough.
A favourite is the Long Library, exceptionally light and airy, especially compared to the previous rooms. The presence of 10,000 books also helps its feeling of homeliness.
Churchill’s story
Blenheim stakes two claims to fame regarding Winston Churchill: As his (unplanned) birthplace, and as the scene of his terrifically romantic proposal to Clementine Hozier. The permanent Churchill Exhibition gives an interesting and thorough background to the young Churchill and an intimate portrayal of his happy family life, including breathtakingly soppy love letters to his wife, and photos of them with their children. It's the history of Churchill not as the statesman, but as the man.
There is a room in the exhibition on his time as war leader – but you find yourself passing through fairly swiftly, to an exhibit of his lovely paintings.
The centrepiece is the small ground floor room in which Churchill was born, which includes a painting of him as an auburn-locked infant, and a vest he wore as a baby.
Outside, a short walk from the house is the romantic Temple of Diana, site of Churchill’s endearingly bumbling proposal.
The gardens are vast: Ornate water, rose and Italian gardens; a Secret Garden (which we missed because it was raining by then); and a lakeside walk to the Cascades – stunning waterfalls. If your groups are up to it, it’s a tremendously tranquil walk, and it’s easy to imagine the young Winston fishing here.
With the house and gardens to explore, the Churchill Exhibition, and tours included in the price – ‘The Untold Story’ and ‘Churchills’ Destiny: The Story of Two Great War Leaders’ – Blenheim is worth a full day out for groups. Enhancements, including tours of the Private Apartments, themed talks, and a chance to see the grounds by buggy, are all available for groups too.
