Context 166 - November 2020

C O N T E X T 1 6 6 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 0 21 Oxford MICHAEL ASSELMEYER Reconnecting Oxford Castle After having been cut off from the city and civilian life for over 900 years, Oxford Castle and its prison have been converted to a hotel with restaurants, bars, shops and flats. Oxford on a cold winter night in 1142, just before Christmas: the Empress Matilda has barricaded herself into the castle. She is sur- rounded by her enemies who have built two siege mounds to launch the final attack. Time is up: a last chance for Matilda to reflect on her extraordinary life. She had been married to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V and crowned at St Peter’s in Rome. Years after the emperor’s premature death, her father Henry I of England nominated her as his heir, but her cousin Stephen challenged her succession and pursued her until she found herself trapped in Oxford. Here she is with an army of trustworthy knights who are holding the fortress. But now she tries the most daring escape. In the middle of the night she is lowered down the castle walls by her loyal companions, crosses the frozen Isis and escapes through enemy lines, allegedly wearing a white cloak as camouflage in the snow. Escape she did, even if some details may have been embellished by storytellers. However, the Empress Matilda was very much a person of flesh and blood and remained a player on the national and international stage, including efforts to mediate between her son Henry II and Thomas Becket before his murder. But it is the picture of the lady in white against the backdrop of Oxford Castle that immortalised her. Medieval architecture has a place at every European nation’s heart, royal castles in particu- lar. Here the kings of old would entertain and hold tournaments. Banners would proudly fly in the wind and the whisper of courtiers and noble ladies be heard across immaculate lawns. Oxford Castle has never been such a place. Throughout its history, from the Norman Conquest to our own age, it has been a stronghold, a prison, the Alcatraz of its time. Matilda’s escape would remain the exception. Unlike Windsor Castle down the Thames, it did not enjoy a reputation for glamorous interiors. It was dungeon and tread mill rather than ancestral gallery and banqueting hall. Royal by name rather than by occupation, the kings were happy to pass it on to hereditary constables. Oxford Castle developed into a grim place, as fort, administrative centre for Oxfordshire and county gaol, with increas- ing emphasis on the latter. For inmates, the castle walls would be inescapable and often the last they saw on earth. Although rubbing its shoulders with the heart of Oxford, it remained a world apart, impenetrable, until it formally ceased operation as a prison in 1996. In 2001 I accompanied Richard Griffiths on an inspection of Oxford Castle. Griffiths had been appointed heritage consultant for the conversion of the castle from prison to hotel with restaurants, bars, shops and flats, working in conjunction with Alan Baxter, ADP, Dixon Jones and others to regenerate this quarter of Oxford. When we passed the gates it felt like cutting through the briars separating the outside world from Sleeping Beauty, as the castle and prison had been cut off from civilian life for over 900 years. We made our way to the remains of the crypt near the bottom of St George’s Tower, once attached to the dismantled collegiate church of 1074. Geoffrey of Monmouth appears as magister among the canons here between 1129 and 1151, well in time to witness the Empress Matilda’s adventure. It would have been around 1136 in this very place that he wrote the Historia Regum Britanniae , which includes the first known reference to the legend of King Arthur.We gazed respectfully on the Romanesque capitals that were almost certainly familiar to Geoffrey when he gave us Arthur and Merlin. How to pay reference to a location of such importance? St George’s Tower is just as sig- nificant as the repositioned crypt, architectur- ally and historically. It is likely that its surviving foundations belonged to the defences of the Saxon town Oxonforde long before they were Oxford Castle, 2006. Bottom, from left to right: St George’s Tower; D-Wing; Debtors’ Tower; A-Wing with hotel. Centre, from left to right: Castle Mound; restaurants; County Hall. The photo shows how the regeneration project has opened up the 1.2 hectare site to New Street, facing Nuffield College on the opposite side (Photo: Barnard’s Badger, Flight 9.9.06b 011, Wikimedia)