Overlooking Oxford

Boars Hill

The Oxford Preservation Trust administers two sites on Old Boars Hill, each having associations with distinguished men, Matthew Arnold (1822-88) and Sir Arthur Evans (1851-1941).

Matthew Arnold, eldest son of Dr Thomas Arnold of Rugby School, was an undergraduate at Balliol (who have a plaster bust by William Tyler), then (1845-47) a Fellow of Oriel (where there is a portrait by Lowes Dickinson). Later (1857-67) he became Professor of Poetry at Oxford. Although he is remembered chiefly as a poet, his work as an inspector of schools (1851-86) was also of national importance, since his reports and recommendations paved the way for the national system of secondary education which was introduced by the Education Act of 1902. His connection with Boars Hill is that the area provided the inspiration and the setting for two of his best-known poems, The Scholar Gipsy (1853) and Thyrsis (1867). A notice-board at the entrance to a field bears the legend:

This land, named Matthew Arnold Field, being a principal foreground of the poet's vision in 'Thyrsis' and 'The Scholar Gipsy' was bought for the Oxford Preservation Trust through public subscription from both sides of the Atlantic.

Only a few yards from the Matthew Arnold Field is Jarn Mound surrounded by a Wild Garden, both created by Sir Arthur Evans. Just inside the gate is a large block of natural stone which has affixed to it a plaque of smooth stone with the words:

Arthur John Evans 1851-1941

Arthur Evans had a house, 'Youlbury' (now demolished) on Boars Hill from 1894 until his death. He had the mound built at his own expense to prevent the crest of the hill, with its unique view-point and its associations with Matthew Arnold's poetry, from being ruined by building development. The project took three years to complete and was carried out entirely by hand labour. In spite of this enormous effort, the mound is now surrounded by houses, and the view that Arthur Evans strove to preserve is largely obscured by tall conifers planted in their gardens. He left another mark on the area by giving part of his estate to the Boy Scouts Association whose members still enjoy Youlbury Camp.

Some account of his life's work will be found under the Ashmolean Museum on page 50.

Shotover Hill

Beside a path just inside the wood in Shotover Country Park near Shotover Plain, about sixty yards beyond the limit of the car-park, is a stone bench with an inscription:

Musical readers will recognise the quotation as the last line of Matthew Arnold's poem Thyrsis, part of which Vaughan Williams set to music in 1952 in his Oxford Elegy. Arnold had written the poem in memory of his friend Arthur Hugh Clough who had died in Florence in 1861 at the age of forty-two.

Dr Burtt Davy was head of the Botany Section of what was then the Imperial Forestry Institute (now the Department of Forestry) in the University, and was an authority on the flora and vegetation of tropical forests. After his official retirement in 1939, he returned to work without salary, partly because of wartime shortage of staff and also because there was so much research and writing that he still wanted to do. He died only a few months after his final retirement in the summer of 1940.

Harcourt Hill

At the entrance to the drive of the first house on the left, ascending Harcourt Hill, North Hinksey, is a notice-board with the following wording:

Hinksey Conduit House was built by Otto Nicholson in 1610* as part of his scheme to provide pure water to the City of Oxford. The Conduit House collected water from the springs in the hillside above. From here the water was piped to Carfax Conduit in the centre of Oxford.

English Heritage. Historic Buildings & Monuments ColD111ission for England.

The Conduit House, surrounded by a protective fence, is two hundred yards beyond the notice, through a gate and past an area littered with derelict cars and other scrap. The House itself is a stone-built roofed reservoir from which water was piped to the Conduit which stood at Carfax from 1617 until 1787. (See Highways for horses: Traffic jams). In the adjacent field is an ancient stone (one of three in the area) about the size of a milestone, but any inscription that may have been on it has long since worn off. The stones may have indicated the position of the springs or pipes which supplied water to the Conduit House.

* The date given on the notice-board agrees with the inscription on the monument now at Nuneham Courtenay, which gives the date as MDCX (1610); but the inscription originally had three additional letters (VII) which were inadvertently left out when the monument was renovated in 1686, The correct date should therefore be MDCXVII (1617), (Catherine Cole, Cirfi~. Conduit in Oxoniensii XXIX-XXXI, pp 142-166,)