The usual tourist-driven information points and blogs about Oxford all tend to concentrate on the “dreaming spires” and the history of the University, yet I hope below are a few more unusual facts that you have never heard about Oxford.

Fact: Oxford was never bombed in the war, as Hitler intended to use Oxford as his headquarters once he conquered Britain. A new capital of England for his new regime.

Fact: The City claims that Oxford has more published writers per square mile than anywhere else in the world. Lewis Carroll, JRR Tolkein, CS Lewis, Philip Pullman to name but a few. Oh, and not forgetting it’s the home of the Oxford English Dictionary

Fact: The ‘real’ Alice in Alice in Wonderland was a girl called Alice Liddell, a daughter of the Dean at Christ Church College, a friend of Lewis Carroll. 

Fact: Oxford University has educated 25 British Prime Ministers in its history. Not a bad collection, including Clement Attlee, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair (Cambridge has educated 15)

Fact: Cambridge. Archrival? It was actually founded by exiled Oxford scholars who fled on of the “town versus gown” riots that erupted in 1209 between students and townspeople.

Fact: Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum is the oldest museum in the UK and one of the oldest in the world. It was the first museum in the world to be opened to the public (1683) according to the Guinness Book of Records. Randomly, it’s original collection included zoological specimens, including the stuffed body of the last Dodo ever seen in Europe. 

Fact: Christ Church Cathedral’s bell in the tower (called the Great Tom) strikes 101 times at 9.05pm every evening (corresponding to what used to be “Oxford time”) and used to signal the time for all the colleges to lock their gates and for the students to return home. 9pm?! How times have changed…