New Ancient Egypt And Nubia Galleries At Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

by Sean McLachlan on


The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has always been famous for its collection of art from Ancient Egypt and Nubia (Sudan). It recently revamped these galleries as part of a major remodel.

While the new galleries reopened in November, I didn’t want to write it up until I got to see it for myself. The old galleries were dark, cramped and had endless cases crammed with artifacts. In other words, they were arranged in the old style. Museums are changing, though. The trend these days are to have brighter, more open and inviting spaces that reduce museum fatigue. Most of the Ashmolean got this treatment back in 2009, and after a big fund raising effort the famous Egyptian and Nubian galleries have also been revamped.

As you can see from the above picture, the gloomy old galleries have been opened up. Signage has been improved with lots of detailed information about each piece. The Ashmolean has become the poster child of new museum design, and its impressive collection certainly helps make it a world-class destination.

Personally I walked through the galleries with mixed feelings. Creating more space means displaying fewer artifacts. The crowded cases filled with dozens of figurines or amulets are gone, replaced by displays showing single pieces or at most half a dozen. As one of my friends complained, this slants the displays towards the best objects, while the more day-to-day objects familiar to the common people aren’t represented. She also pointed out that you lose the chance to compare typology, how the appearance of artifacts change over space and time.

On the other hand, the new galleries are definitely a more user-friendly experience. All the objects for which the galleries were famous are still there, like the phallic statue of the god Min, the Shrine of Taharqa and a Roman-era female mummy complete with golden tits. While obsessive archaeology buffs will be a bit disappointed with the new look, most visitors will find it a pleasant change.

All photos courtesy copyright Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

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A rural ride through Oxfordshire

by Sean McLachlan on


Yesterday was my birthday, and now that I’m halfway to 84 I figured the best way to spend it was with other decaying leftovers from ages past. I mean medieval buildings, not my travel companions.

Oxfordshire offers plenty of hikes, historic buildings, and good restaurants. To celebrate my increasing decrepitude, some friends drove my wife and I from Oxford to the nearby village of Great Coxwell to see a rare survival from the Middle Ages–the Great Coxwell Barn. While there’s no shortage of medieval churches and castles still standing in England, there aren’t many well-preserved medieval barns. This one was owned by the Cistercian Beaulieu Abbey and was built around 1300 AD. It was part of a grange (farm) owned by the abbey and worked by lay brothers and servants. The barn stored the produce of the grange as well as the tithe of the parish farmers.

The exterior looks remarkably churchlike, while the interior is a vast open space with a slate roof supported by an impressive system of wooden posts, beams and rafters, all connected by pegs or slots and tabs. Metal was expensive back then, and not a single nail was used in the construction of this massive roof.

%Gallery-130852%Great Coxwell also has a small church that’s about a hundred years older than the barn. It’s just up the hill in the middle of a churchyard filled with moss-covered gravestones that centuries of weathering have pushed over into crazy angles. Just the thing to see on your birthday! On a happier note the churchyard is a managed wildlife area with a colorful variety of wildflowers. These folks are pushing up more than just daisies.

The church has been much restored but has some interesting early inscriptions and a tiny winding passageway behind the pulpit that I could barely squeeze into. Sadly it led around a single turn and straight into a wall made of rubble and mortar. My mind conjured up all sorts of legends and ghostly walled-up monks, but the more likely explanation for this barrier is that it’s to keep nosy visitors from going up the steps.

For lunch we visited The White Hart in Fyfield. This restaurant/pub (called a “gastropub” over here) is in the old Hospital of St. John the Baptist, built in the mid-to-late 1400s. The “hospital” was actually an almshouse, housing five poor people as well as a priest whose job it was to say masses for the benefactor. We ate in the main hall beneath old wooden beams. Beyond the bar was a huge medieval fireplace.

The food was as good as the atmosphere. Many of the ingredients are locally sourced, some from as close as their own garden. I had the slow-roasted belly of Kelmscott pork, apple, celeriac puree, carrots, crackling, and cider jus. Utterly delicious. For dessert I had a roast peach with raspberry sorbet, topped with a spider’s web of spun sugary something. Sorry, I’m not a foodie writer, just trust me that it was good. My companions’ meals looked equally good and we washed it down with real ale from the Loose Cannon Brewery from nearby Abingdon.

Not a bad way to grow older!

The number 66 bus runs regularly between Oxford and Fyfield. This bus stops at Faringdon, where you can take the number 61 to Great Coxwell.

Hiking in Oxfordshire: follies and fields near Faringdon

by Sean McLachlan on

I’m spending the summer in Oxford, and so far the English weather has been pretty disappointing with rain, clouds, and cool temperatures that are already making the leaves change color.

Whenever the weather is good here I’m out in the countryside hiking. The weather hasn’t been cooperating, so I and a friend went anyway. We chose a hike from Faringdon to Buckland. Faringdon is an old Oxfordshire market town with some fine pubs and historic buildings and a completely useless tower that is Faringdon’s main claim to fame.

The so-called Faringdon Folly was built in 1935 and was the last of a craze among England’s bored nobility to erect useless monuments on their property. There are follies all over England, including the “ruins” of fake Gothic churches that were never anything but ruins, giant stone pineapples, and even artificial caves that in their glory days were staffed by professional hermits.

The Faringdon Folly was the work of Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt-Wilson, 14th Baron Berners (1883-1950), a local eccentric who liked having his horse over for tea and dying his flock of doves in bright colors. Berners made no apologies for his strange behavior, once remarking that, “There is a good deal to be said for frivolity. Frivolous people, when all is said and done, do less harm in the world than some of our philanthropisors and reformers. Mistrust a man who never has an occasional flash of silliness.”

A large hill stood on his property and one day Berners casually remarked that there should be a tower on the top. His neighbors took this seriously and complained that a tower would ruin the view. To bait them, Berners decided to make the rumors become reality. When the planning committee asked Berners what the purpose of the tower would be, he replied, “The great point of the Tower is that it will be entirely useless.”

%Gallery-130606%Being the local nobility, Berners soon got his way and built the tower. In the interests of public safety he posted a sign warning that, “Members of the Public committing suicide from this tower do so at their own risk.”

Before heading out to see the folly, we had good coffee and excellent homemade cakes at the Faringdon Coffee House on the main square. Try the coconut and mango cake! Once we were fully caffeinated and sugared up, we walked a few minutes to Folly Hill, a tall but gentle hill covered with Scottish pines. The oldest were planted in the 1780s by the local celebrity Henry James Pye (1745-1813), often considered the worst Poet Luareate England ever had. Because of the thick greenery you don’t get a good look at the folly until you’re almost at its base, at which point you crane your neck up to see a plain square tower with a Gothic top. Berners had an argument with his architect about how it should look and so it ended up as two different styles.

The hill is 300 feet high, and the tower another 104 feet, so the observation deck gives you sweeping views of the countryside. On a clear day you can see 25 miles. Little villages dotted the rolling landscape and patchwork of fields. Far in the distance I spotted the mysterious chalk figure of the White Horse of Uffington.

While the tower may be useless, it draws a lot of visitors. It’s open the first Sunday of the month and on selected other dates. It will open for groups by prior arrangement. It’s also an officially registered lighthouse, with a beacon that shines from December through March, even though there aren’t any boats that need guiding. It’s said to be the only lighthouse that can’t been seen from the sea!

After visiting the folly we headed north across farmers’ fields and through patches of woodland towards the village of Buckland. I heard about this hike through The AA guide 50 Walks in Oxfordshire. This book is filled with great ideas for hikes and inspired my walks to Dorchester Abbey, the Rollright Stones, and a little-known church and holy well near Oxford. I say the book is filled with great ideas, because the directions leave something to be desired. The text is vague and the “maps” are hand-drawn sketches. Most of the time when I use this book I get lost, but since the hikes are never longer than ten miles it’s usually easy to find your way back. Besides, there are worse places to be lost than the English countryside.

We did have one good landmark–the Folly. Every time we got out into the open we could see it, and since Buckland is east and a little north of Faringdon, we could gauge our progress by the relative position of the Folly. Of course this meant the hike ended up being longer than intended. There was some scrambling over barbed wire, pushing through thickets, and the discovery of just how dense a corn field can be, yet it was all good fun.

Buckland is famous for The Lamb, a popular gastropub with locally sourced cuisine. We hoped to get a snack there, or at least a couple of pints to reward ourselves for all that hopping over barbed wire, but sadly when we finally made it, the pub was closed for the afternoon. We made up for it by eating at The Magdalen Arms back in Oxford, one of the best gastropubs I’ve visited. We both ordered rabbit in honor of all the rabbits we saw on the hike.

Done correctly, the loop trail from Faringdon to Buckland and back is ten miles (16.1 km). It’s an easy day hike with some pleasant countryside. It’s easily accessible from Oxford on the number 66 bus, which takes 40 minutes. It’s also doable as a day trip from London, going via Oxford.

Hiking England’s oldest road

by Sean McLachlan on

England is an old land where you can drink in the same pubs as the Crusaders did and watch a play in a Roman theater, so it’s a rare treat to touch or experience anything that can legitimately boast of being the “oldest.”

The Ridgeway Trail in Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire in southern England just might have the claim of being the country’s oldest road. The 87-mile route runs along a chalk ridge from the fantastic megalithic complex of Avebury northeast to the River Thames. People were using this as a road all the way back in the Neolithic 6,000 years ago and perhaps even earlier. Various tribes left their mark in the form of megalithic ruins, forts, and enigmatic chalk figures. There were many of these “ridgeway” routes in prehistoric Europe, allowing travelers to bypass the thick woods and primeval swamps that covered much of lowland Europe at that time.

While not as scenic or rugged as other National Trails such as the one that runs along Hadrian’s Wall, the Ridgeway still makes for a pleasant ramble. B&Bs and campgrounds dot the route so you’ll never have to worry about where to stay, as long as you reserve ahead of time in the peak season. Another big plus is that you can see the trail’s two greatest prehistoric sights, Wayland’s Smithy and the White Horse of Uffington (pictured here) in a long day hike.

The day hike starts in the pretty little village of Bishopstone, a short taxi ride from the railway stop at Swindon. Signs point you up the steep hill overlooking town and onto a broad field that narrows and ascends to the Ridgeway proper. From there head east, and it’s easy sailing from then on. There are no great changes in elevation, just some gentle swells.

Once you’re on the Ridgeway, it’s only five miles to the White Horse, but two miles along there’s a road heading south that takes you to the old stately home of Ashdown House and its grounds. Hidden in the forest is Alfred’s Castle, attributed in local folklore to King Alfred the Great, who defeated the Vikings nearby in 871. In fact it’s a hill fort dating to the about the 6th century BC. Hill forts were settlements or refuges enclosed by ditches and earth palisades. They tended to be on high spots to make them easier to defend. There’s not much to see of the old earthworks here, but the birds tweeting in the branches makes this place a good spot for a picnic. The detour is two miles each way plus another mile or so of wandering through the woods.

%Gallery-84894%Back on the Ridgeway, it’s not long before you reach Wayland’s Smithy. This megalithic tomb was built about 5,500 years ago in the Neolithic, the last phase of the Stone Age. A low, narrow passageway of stone slabs leads to three burial chambers set inside a long earthen mound. Archaeologists believe it was the burial place for an important chief and his family. It’s similar to West Kennet Long Barrow at Avebury. Like West Kennet, Wayland’s Smithy is completely open and you can explore the entire tomb, as well as pick up trash left by less respectful visitors. The place is named after Wayland, an old Germanic blacksmith god a bit like the Roman Vulcan. Local folklore says if you need your horse shod, you can leave it and a silver coin here overnight and the god will do the job for you!

After Wayland’s Smithy the ridge becomes more exposed and you get broad views of the lowlands to the north. Soon you’ll come across Uffington Castle, a hill fort that’s much easier to see than Alfred’s Castle because it stands on a high, treeless promontory. On the hillside nearby is one of England’s most famous monuments–the White Horse of Uffington. This horse, drawn in the Celtic style, was made by cutting off the topsoil to reveal the white chalk underneath. Nobody knows exactly how old it is or its original form since it’s been recut numerous times over the centuries, but most archaeologists agree that it dates to the same time as the hill fort, the 7th or 8th century BC. A recent excavation, however, suggests the horse may be a few centuries older.

The White Horse is fascinating to see up close, but there’s no good way to see it in its entirety. The photo attached to this article is an aerial shot for a reason! Only when you walk down the ridge and towards to village of Uffington to take a bus back to Swindon will you see the horse as it was meant to be seen–from the valley with Uffington Castle next to it. Back in the day it must have been a powerful symbol of the local tribe’s dominance over the region.

The entire walk from Bishopstone up to and along the Ridgeway and down to the village of Uffington is about seven miles, plus another five or so for the Alfred’s Castle detour.

Three points to remember. The path can get gooey in parts if there’s been a recent rain, so be prepared. Also, sources of water are scarce along much of the trail so bring a full day’s supply. Finally, rural bus service tends to be poor in England. Plan ahead with the schedules. I got to the village of White Horse at 4:10 PM, just in time to miss the last bus for the day, so I ended up having to hike another five miles to Faringdon to catch another bus. My legs weren’t happy, but it did give me a chance to see the White Horse from a distance.

Museum Junkie: Oxford’s Ashmolean reopens today

by Sean McLachlan on

The long wait is finally over for the grand reopening of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology.

After being partially or completely closed for the past three years, the museum’s vast collection is finally open to the public again, with twice the exhibition space it once had.

The Ashmolean is the oldest public museum in the world, having opened in 1683, and while there have been a lot of changes over the years, none have been as big as this £61 million ($101 million) project. The expansion includes four temporary exhibition galleries so the Ashmolean can host blockbuster traveling shows, something it couldn’t do with its previous space.

The permanent collection has gone through some major changes too. More of it is on display now, of course, but also the style of the displays has been revamped with the new idea of Crossing Cultures Crossing Time, which allows visitors to see how civilizations developed as parts of an interrelated world culture. This is an an improvement over the old-style way of displaying civilizations as separate entities when in reality they influenced one another on many levels. It also echoes the global perspective that Oxford’s other world-class museum, the Pitt-Rivers, brings to its own collection.

The museum is best known for its collections of Anglo-Saxon, predynastic Egyptian, Asian, and Renaissance art and artifacts, but has a good sampling of treasures from just about every period and culture, everything from crocodile mummies to medieval beer mugs. Museum junkies will not want to miss the new Ashmolean.

If the pictures in the gallery below aren’t enough for you, check out this collection of photos by yours truly and Mrs. yours truly.

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