The Oxford Castle and Prison

The Oxford Castle and Prison

The picture above was my first sight of the castle. It looks exactly how I expected, so I was not disappointed in the least. I entered the gift shop to register my ticket and waited for the tour guide. Quickly, a young man wearing a peasant costume gathered us together. He took our tickets, and we entered the small door into the castle.

I found myself in a small, open room with stone walls and a great doorway on the other side, and the tour guide gave us a brief history of The Castle and Prison. Beginning in AD 1071, Robert D'Oyly built a castle at William I's request. This became a cover and a military front for Oxford. Since then it has seen battles, massacres, and sieges, including when Empress Matilda made the castle her refuge in the 12th century. Her cousin, King Stephen, tried to kill her when she claimed the throne as her own. But, she escaped his ranks by camouflaging herself in the snow. In the 18th century, the castle was turned into a prison which closed in 1996. Now, of course, it is used as a historical site.

We then proceeded up a winding staircase (this is the second picture down below). These stairs were created to trip people...seriously. The original designers made the stairs uneven and different heights, so when the castle was attacked and the enemies ran up the stairs, they would trip over each other, biding time to those inside. I, and the others around me I'm sure, struggled to not trip myself.

We stopped about halfway up in a small room. A railing divided the room, and the mill stood on the other side (third picture below). They used this room to house prisoners of war during the English Civil War in the 17th Century. Hundreds of prisoners were crammed into this room and forced to work the mill day in and out.

We then continued up the stairs into the top tower, called St. Georges Tower. I could see much of Oxford from up top just like the past inhabitants. They would climb the tower to see who was approaching from far away, and if enemies were advancing, they had enough time to prepare their defense. The fourth picture down below is the view I saw of Oxford.

We then descended into the crypt underneath the castle. This is where they would house the dead before and after the funerals until they were buried. This used to be right under the chapel of the castle which, unfortunately, was destroyed when it was turned into a prison.

We walked through the columned tunnel and eventually came back to ground level and came to the prison cells. Our tour guide talked about several of the prisoners housed there. In the sixth picture below, our guide put one of the tourists in a stockade while telling us of a man who spoke out against the state. He was placed in the stockade for several days in the middle of the town where people would come and mock him.

We went to several cells and learned about a woman who was tried for killing her father because he would not allow her to marry her lover. Whether she was guilty or not was never established. The prison housed children too. The youngest prisoner was a girl of six years old who stole a baby tram from her neighbors yard. She was only there a week because of her father's protests. They later discovered that the mother had told the girl to steal the tram, but she had let her daughter take the consequences.

After the tour I climbed up the Castle Mound. This is a man-made mound used as a well. The well still stands at the top although it is no longer used. From the top, I was able to see a good deal of Oxford. These are the last three pictures below.

I rather enjoyed touring the castle. Such a place brings stories from the Medieval Times back to life. I felt like I was stepping into those stories and experiencing them for the first time.

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British thing I learned:

Flapjacks are not pancakes. They are a dessert that is made up of granola and golden syrup.