Oxford

Oxford's history dates back to a Saxon settlement founded in the 8th century. Its name comes from the Old English Oxenaforda, the "ford of the oxen", a shallow crossing where oxen could pass, and the town was strategically important for that ford and for its place on the upper Thames where the Cherwell joins it. After the Norman Conquest, the Norman lord Robert D'Oyly built Oxford Castle in 1071 to secure the area.

There is evidence of teaching in Oxford as early as 1096, and the university grew rapidly from 1167, when Henry II prohibited English students from attending the University of Paris. Relations between scholars and townspeople were often tense: in 1209, after townspeople hanged two scholars for an alleged murder, a number of academics fled and founded the University of Cambridge. Oxford became a city in 1542. During the Marian persecution the Oxford Martyrs were tried here for heresy; the bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley were burned at the stake in October 1555 and the former archbishop Thomas Cranmer was executed in March 1556, events recalled by the Victorian Martyrs' Memorial in St Giles'.

In the English Civil War, Charles I made Oxford his de facto capital from 1642 to 1646 after being expelled from London. In 1910 the entrepreneur William Morris, later Lord Nuffield, founded a motor car business in the city and opened an assembly plant at Cowley, and the city's population and economy grew with the industrial boom. Mini cars, owned by BMW since 2000, are still principally built in Cowley.

The University of Oxford dominates the city's identity. It is made up of 43 colleges and halls, each controlling its own membership and activities, and it has buildings in every style of English architecture since late Anglo-Saxon times. Undergraduate teaching combines lectures with small-group tutorials in the colleges, and academic dress is still required for examinations and matriculation.

The city has a long literary history. Lewis Carroll, author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, was a student and mathematics lecturer at Christ Church; J. R. R. Tolkien, author of The Lord of the Rings, was an undergraduate at Exeter College and later a professor of English at Merton; and C. S. Lewis was a fellow of Magdalen. The Victorian composer John Stainer was organist at Magdalen College.

Two old customs mark the city's year: May Morning, when crowds gather at dawn on 1 May to hear the Magdalen choir sing from the college tower, and St Giles' Fair, a two-day funfair in September that grew out of a medieval trading fair. Beyond the university there are museums such as Modern Art Oxford, the Museum of Oxford, Science Oxford and The Story Museum, and in summer punting on the Isis and the Cherwell is a common pastime.

Oxford had a population of about 166,000 in 2024. It is notably young and diverse: about 30 per cent of residents are aged 18 to 29, roughly double the national average, largely because about 35,000 full-time students attend the city's two universities.

The economy combines education and research with manufacturing, publishing and science-based industries, tourism, sport and entertainment. Oxford University Press is based in Jericho, and Mini cars are built at Cowley. The city sits at the centre of the Oxford Green Belt, which limits building on the surrounding countryside.

Life follows the academic calendar: the centre is crowded with students during term and with visitors in summer. Many residents live in the suburbs of Headington, Marston, Iffley and Cowley, inside the Oxford Ring Road; Cowley Road, running south-east from near Magdalen Bridge, is the main shopping street of East Oxford and its main leisure district in the evenings. Trains and the Oxford Tube coach link the city with London, about 56 miles away.

Oxford has given its name to two foods. The Oxford sausage is a pork and veal sausage thought to have been developed in the city; it is noted for the veal, unusual among traditional British sausages, and for its heavy seasoning with spices. References to the Oxford style date back to at least the early 18th century, and the sausage became better known after it appeared in Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management in 1861. Oxford marmalade is the best-known product of Frank Cooper's, a brand created by Sarah Cooper in the city in 1874.

The city also has a long history of brewing: Morrell's, founded in 1743, was one of several breweries that once operated in the centre.

For everyday food, the Covered Market, a historic market of permanent stalls and shops in the city centre opened in 1774, is a Grade II listed building. Cowley Road, the main shopping street of East Oxford, hosts the annual Cowley Road Carnival with food from around the world, while Jericho, north of the centre, has many restaurants among its back streets of 19th-century terraced housing.