Day 8 - Oxford Colleges and Botanic Gardens

What a day! We saw some of the most beautiful and oldest gardens on earth, Rousham and Oxford University Botanical Garden. We also explored a couple of Oxford's finest colleges, Merton College and Magdalen College.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Rousham, a wonderful, unspoilt and uncommercial garden designed by William Kent (1685-1748), which represents the first phase of the English Landscape style and remains close to Kent's original conception. It is located 12 miles from Oxford. This magnificent garden is closed to children under sixteen years of age and there are no gift shops or vendor located on the grounds.

University Botanic Garden, founded in 1621 by Hnry Danvers, Earl of Danby, as a physic garden specifically for the growing of hervs and plants for use in medicine and science, this is the oldes Botanic Garden in Britain.

Merton is one of the oldest colleges in Oxford. It was designed to be a highly exclusive institution, housing a small, privileged minority of mostly graduate fellows. The tower of Merton College Chapel dominates the view from Merton Street.

Magdalen College was founded in 1458 by William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester and Lord Chancellor of England. Magdalen's Great Tower was strategically important in the defense of the city: the Tower was used as a vantage post and a supply of stones was kept ready to hurl down at the approaching enemy, although the city was never attacked.