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With tales of ghosts, an empress beneath siege, imprisoned 7-year-olds and an opportunity to throw fluffy rats at your loved ones, a go to to Oxford Citadel with children is without doubt one of the most uncommon and entertaining days out within the metropolis.
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Oxford Citadel & Jail, to provide it its full title, dates again to only after the Norman Conquest – however the web site, which was used as a jail for hundreds of years, solely lastly stopped working as a jail in 1996. Since 2006, you’ll be able to discover inside, discovering a few of the oldest corners and probably the most surprising tales.
You’ll be able to even keep in a part of the previous fortress jail, now the Malmaison lodge, or just ebook in for a tour and a go searching, as we did. So in the event you’re exploring Oxford with children, right here’s why the fortress must be in your listing.
Your go to begins with a guided tour, taking you to the highest of St George’s Tower – one of many oldest components of the fortress nonetheless standing, earlier than main you thru historical past in a few of the different previous rooms.
The tour takes round 50 minutes, after which you’re free to proceed exploring, revisiting the rooms from the tour (besides the tower), in addition to these which the guided part doesn’t go to, plus an exhibition that includes some interactive enjoyable.
It’s a good way to do it as your information – Eli, in our case – helped carry the stone tower to life with some thrilling tales, in addition to answering questions.
The primary cease is half-way up the tower – a pleasant break as you climb the 101 steps to the highest. A reasonably naked stone room, looking to the skyline of Oxford, there’s a extra dramatic historical past hidden right here than you may anticipate.
Again within the twelfth century, throughout the interval referred to as the Anarchy, the Empress Matilda – daughter of Henry I – and her cousin, Stephen I had been at warfare, as each claimed the throne. Matilda had made her base in Oxford, staying in that exact same room within the fortress, when Stephen besieged the constructing.
In keeping with legends, as his troops waited out the lengthy chilly winter, the Empress and her knights let themselves down out of the tower, and disguised beneath white sheets in opposition to the snow, fled throughout the fields earlier than skating off alongside the frozen Thames.
Whether or not it’s true, or whether or not she sneaked out of a gate, she definitely escaped to battle one other day. And why spoil a very good story?
The tower itself is without doubt one of the oldest buildings in Oxford, and one of many first components constructed by Robert D’Oilly (or D’Oyly) in 1071 after William the Conqueror granted him the land and instructed him to construct a fortress to subdue the Saxons.
The views from the highest are somewhat completely different than the Saxon market city which the Normans would have seen, but it surely’s an awesome likelihood to look out over the dreaming spires.
By the way, in the event you don’t need to climb the 101 steps to the highest, or can’t, there’s a video to look at on the bottom flooring. Beneath-fives aren’t allowed to try the climb.
Don’t be postpone by the truth that the steps had been designed to kill invaders – barely uneven, they elevated the possibility of attackers falling into their very own swords, or the person behind them in a faintly deadly model of knocking over dominoes. They’re straightforward sufficient for teenagers to climb, so the largest hazard is the low ceilings!
From right here, the tour strikes on to a different of the oldest components of the fortress, the crypt beneath St George’s chapel, based after Robert D’Oilly had a nightmare of the Virgin Mary warning him about his sinful methods.
And whereas the chapel was later destroyed, the crypt and its carved stone columns survived, finally excavated by an 18th century jail governor, who held the novel beliefs that prisoners ought to use their time in jail productively to develop into higher members of society in future – and occurred to be a little bit of an newbie archaeologist on the aspect.
That’s not the one story related to the crypt: as a cool underground house, it was very best for storing our bodies and it’s mentioned immediately that the world is haunted – one nook particularly which regularly appears colder. The ghosts weren’t making an look, and even dropping the temperature after we had been there although.
Proper from its earliest days, the fortress was in all probability used as a jail – firstly, rebellious Saxons, and earlier than too lengthy, any college students who had been caught misbehaving (which on condition that they had been usually 14-year-old boys with no mother and father readily available, a lot of beer and swords, was continuously).
By the sixteenth century, in Elizabeth’s England, it was Catholics who usually discovered themselves in entrance of a choose – together with an notorious bookseller referred to as Rowland Jenkes, who was sentenced to time within the pillory, nailed to the wooden by his ears… and who referred to as down a curse upon all these within the courtroom consequently.
Nearly immediately, males began to drop lifeless (though apparently no ladies, kids or servants) – some believed it was black magic, others that it was God’s divine punishment, whereas fashionable historians suppose a very virulent bout of typhus is perhaps responsible.
Both means, it’s gone down in historical past because the Black Assizes… and in the event you’re courageous sufficient, you’ll be able to take your individual possibilities within the pillory. Though no-one will get nailed by the ears nowadays, the worst you’ve acquired to endure is your loved ones throwing fluffy rats at you. (Maybe that’s simply my household!)
By the Civil Battle, Charles I had made Oxford his capital, and whereas he selected the extra luxurious lodging of Christ Church school over the fortress, it turned briefly one of the vital necessary within the nation – and with one of many worst reputations for jail circumstances.
When Parliament triumphed, they razed many of the fortress to the bottom: solely the tower was saved as there was a helpful mill on the backside, the mound (or previous motte) because the earth was too hard-packed to destroy, and the crypt because it was lengthy buried.
From this level on, the fortress was firmly a jail somewhat than a fortress, and the tour introduces you to some of the extra shocking tales – corresponding to middle-class Mary Blandy, charged with the homicide of her father to marry the dashing Captain Cranbourn.
It turned out the Captain already had one spouse in Scotland so her father had cancelled their deliberate marriage ceremony; Mary’s defence was that her former fiance had despatched her a love tonic to melt her father’s coronary heart in the direction of their match, however after giving him the white powder, her father sickened and died.
An post-mortem revealed arsenic poisoning – and the letters which Mary insisted proved her innocence had been burned. The jury weren’t satisfied… and she or he paid the value.
Or how about one of many jail’s youngest inmates? Julia Ann Crumpling ‘borrowed’ her neighbour’s toy pram, however forgot to provide it again. Because the theft had been reported, there was nothing for it however to condemn her to time inside – seven days onerous labour.
The quick sentence wasn’t out of mercy for her youth both, however to spare her father the disgrace of getting a jailbird daughter!
Launched, on the proviso that she was despatched to highschool, Julia by no means did reoffend, one thing which might have satisfied the Victorians that the pointless punishments they inflicted on prisoners truly labored.
Within the exhibition, there’s an opportunity to check out examples of onerous labour your self. One punishment was shifting cannonballs from one aspect of the yard to the opposite – after which again once more – over and over. One of many unique balls is on show, however there’s a 22kg weight to attempt to elevate if you wish to expertise what it will have been like.
Or there’s the crank, a deal with which prisoners needed to flip 1000’s of occasions a day, and the capstan – which you’ll see in St George’s Tower – the place prisoners turned an enormous wheel to pump water up right into a tank on the higher flooring of the tower. Which was then all launched again right down to the river.
The treadwheel might be straight out of a contemporary fitness center although, a tool the place you tread on the steps endlessly turning the wheel however getting nowhere – not 1,000,000 miles away from a contemporary step machine.
Though you’ll be able to at the least get off these whenever you’re drained: apparently some prisoners climbed the equal of Mount Kilimanjaro daily.
Situations had improved by the twentieth century (though not as a lot as maybe they need to) and the ultimate a part of the exhibition offers extra particulars about fashionable regulation and punishment, in addition to a few of the extra infamous prisoners – be careful for the soar scare at first of the video in the event you enterprise into the cell designed for Donald Neilson, referred to as the Black Panther!
After tales of royalty, rats and radical reformers, all bundled right into a whirlwind gallop by means of over 1000 years of historical past, there’s only one factor left to do earlier than you permit (other than attempting to withstand shopping for a fluffy rat/wood sword within the reward store) – climb the mound.
A part of the unique motte and bailey fortress constructed again in 1071, the grassy hill was too powerful for the Parliamentarians to destroy after they emerged victorious after the civil warfare, so it sits a stone’s throw from St George’s tower to this present day.
A curving path results in flat space on the prime for extra views over to Oxford and again down onto the previous jail.
If you’d like one remaining style of jail life, head into the Malmaison lodge to take a look at the cell they’ve left intact (in the event you’re forking out, it’s an awesome place for lunch too) – or the fortress quarter has a string of eating places of its personal, plus you’ll be able to escape to central Oxford and the Westgate centre a brief stroll away.
Which supplies you likelihood to mirror on this extremely entertaining journey by means of historical past as you go – and for my 11-year-old to rely her fortunate stars that she doesn’t stay in a time when you would be jailed for borrowing a toy pram.
Visiting Oxford Citadel with children: Have to know
Tickets price from £15.50 for normal entry, in the event you ebook as much as two days prematurely, and £9.95 for kids. You may also purchase flexi-tickets for £17.50. Beneath-fives are free however want a ticket.
You may also purchase tickets with free cancellation through tiqets – get a reduction in the event you ebook by means of my hyperlink utilizing the code MUMMYTRAVELS6.
Excursions run daily from 10am, though timings could change across the college holidays. Every tour has a most of 20 individuals and run each 20 minutes on Fridays and weekends till 5pm, each half-hour from Monday to Thursday till 4.30pm.
It’s worthwhile to prebook a timed entry slot for the guided tour, as there’s no entry in any other case, though you’ll be able to proceed exploring afterwards (excluding the tower). You’re requested to reach 10 minutes earlier than your tour begins.
There are additionally further actions and occasions happening throughout the 12 months, corresponding to Knight College throughout the summer season holidays, birds of prey dealing with and flying periods on choose dates.
If you wish to climb the mound, anybody reserving tickets to the fortress is given a code to the gate included in your ticket. When you don’t need to do the complete fortress tour however fancy climbing the mound, you are able to do so for a small charge (which fits in the direction of preserving the construction).
Some areas of the fortress should not accessible to wheelchairs, and prams/pushchairs aren’t allowed due to the slender corridors, so these should be left with employees within the reward store.
There are 101 steps in St George’s Tower: under-fives aren’t allowed to climb the tower, but it surely’s doable for older children. Anybody who can’t (or doesn’t need) to climb can keep downstairs and watch a video with a digital view – an grownup should stick with kids.
There’s no parking at Oxford Citadel, though you’re only some minutes stroll from the Westgate Centre, which has paid parking within the purchasing centre automobile park. In any other case, there are 5 Park and Rides round Oxford: Seacourt Park and Experience is closest.
There are numerous locations to eat and drink within the Oxford Citadel Quarter or Oxford city centre is strolling distance away.
Disclosure: This submit comprises affiliate hyperlinks – any purchases you make are unaffected however I’ll obtain a small fee
Photographs copyright MummyTravels
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