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Mr John Ashdown entertained us with a very interesting illustrated talk on the Oxford city that a young Ruskin knew as a boy and undergraduate; an Oxford which he saw before the late Victorian "modernisation" that he disliked but, in part, influenced.
The illustrations came mainly from the 1814 Akerman book of Oxford which showed that when the 11 year old boy that was Ruskin first visited the city the mediæval and early modern buildings and styles were still in evidence. Christ Church and the cathedral were still unaffected by the alterations of the second half of the nineteenth century. The cathedral still had the old furniture, the organ at a different position than today (in fact a different instrument) and a west end window. Carfax church was still in situ as was all of the St Michael at the North Gate.
Most of the buildings which line the High, Cornmarket and Queen Street had yet to be built. Some do still survive, although with modifications. The Angel Inn in the High which the Ruskin family frequented on visits has little of its 18th and early 19th century façade let alone interior which is the case for number 19 which Mrs Ruskin rented to be near her undergraduate son.
The abiding impression from the talk was of how much modern visitors and residents see the city as having been the same for centuries when, in fact, the city centre is little more than 120 years old.
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