Settling Down In Oxford

Sorry I've been so silent this past week, but Almudena, Julián, and I just moved up to Oxford for a six-month research trip. I'm ensconced in the Bodleian Library researching two books while Almudena is working with the astronomy department. Julián is starting in a local school next week so I'll have much more time to post after that. Taking care of a three year-old all day is exhausting!

So far we've been exploring the two local parks, the local pub called The Fir Tree (serving a fine Sunday roast and guest ales) and getting in a bit of work. Today we took another look at an old pagan grove and Norman church in the village of Iffley that I blogged about last year. This weekend I'll be attending Oxfringe, a local literary festival. I'll be reporting on that next week. Busy, busy!

A Pagan Grove and Norman Church in Iffley

We have a new favorite walk from Oxford. Just a couple of miles up the Isis (the local name for the Thames), and past a nice riverside pub, is the little village of Iffley. Its main claim to fame is a fine Norman church built in the late 11th century that's is almost perfectly preserved. Early on, it changed hands from the local lord to an estate further away, and while the absentee owners paid for its upkeep, they didn't do much to change it, making it one of the most pristine Norman churches in the country.

The front is very Romanesque, and the door is decorated with an unusual partial zodiac, which I'll post on later with more pictures. There's also an atmospheric old cemetery and a 1,500 year-old yew tree. The local priest thinks it was part of a sacred pagan grove and that under the church there's probably an old Saxon church from the 5th or 6th century. Since early church builders liked to build in sacred groves, I'm thinking the Saxons cut down the center tree of the grove, which was probably as old then as this one is now, and built the church on top of it. You see this sort of behavior with mosques, churches, and synagogues in the Middle East depending on who won the latest war.

The surviving tree was probably little more than a sapling then, young when its religion was old, and escaped the notice of the Christians. Perhaps cutting down the central, most sacred tree in the grove was all that needed to be done to destroy it as a place of religious significance. I remember reading in some early Christian accounts where they destroyed sacred groves, and they usually only destroyed the main tree. The sole surviving sacred yew can be seen on the righthand side of both the photos of the church here.