Hi everyone! I’m Angelina and
I’m still here in lovely Oxford, enjoying the beautiful atmosphere.
Today, I’m going to see Heidi, who is an official tour guide here in Oxford.
I want to learn a little bit more about the historical colleges.
I also know that some of the colleges have been used as film locations
and since I love the movies, I cannot wait to see that.
Let’s go meet Heidi!
Hi Heidi! It’s good to see you. And you. How are you doing?
I’m great. How are you? Good! Very well.
I’m so excited that you’re here and I can’t wait to show you Oxford.
You promise to show me some film locations, right?
Absolutely. I hear you like Harry Potter, right? I do.
We’re starting here at Christ Church, which is probably our most famous college.
It’s famous for several reasons. First of all, its formation.
It was founded by Cardinal Wolsey in the 16th century and then re-founded by Henry the VIII of England.
It’s one of our 38 colleges making up the one Oxford University.
The other reason why it’s famous is for its connection to Harry Potter.
The dining hall here was the inspiration for the Hogwarts dining hall.
It actually wasn’t filmed here. What? Where was it filmed then?
It was filmed at Leavesden Studios in Watford.
Some scenes, however, were filmed at the staircase as you go up to the dining hall.
When Ron, Harry and Hermione arrive at Hogwarts for the very first time,
it’s this staircase they go up and they’re greeted at the top by Professor McGonagall.
Here we are with a wonderful view over Christ Church.
This tower peaking up there is Tom Tower. Inside Tom Tower, we have Great Tom.
It’s very famous.
It’s designed by Christopher Wren, one of England’s most famous architects.
I must tell you an interesting fact about Tom Tower.
The bell rings 101 times at five past nine every night.
Really? It’s a great Oxford tradition.
These are the Meadow Buildings.
This is some of the student accommodation here at Christ Church,
which I think is rather a nice place to stay.
It really is. I would love to stay here if I were a student.
These here are the old city walls. And where they have lowered it here;
this is Merton College, one of our oldest colleges, which is one of the colleges of J.R.R. Tolkien.
The tower peaking up there is Magdalen College.
That’s where C.S. Lewis taught and Oscar Wilde studied.
And here, we’ve got Christ Church of Lewis Carroll and Alice in Wonderland.
It’s beautiful to think of all these great authors. It is. There were lots of great authors.
This is New College Lane here, which you might recognize.
It was actually used in the filming of a movie, The Mummy with Tom Cruise.
I believe this is where the monster comes out.
The Mummy was filmed here and Tom Cruise was here!
Let’s go into New College now. Yeah.
I love the entrances into the colleges.
They’re fortified entrances. It’s like going into a castle.
Here we are inside New College. It’s not very new. It’s actually quite old. It dates to about 1379.
I was really excited to bring you inside a college to get a sense of what a college is all about.
New College is often used in filming.
We’re going to talk about a film later and famous people that have studied here as well.
There’s an actor that you might know: Hugh Grant.
I know him. He studied here? He was here.
Hugh Grant studied here!
This is the dining hall where I believe they filmed “When I Kissed the Teacher “
from the Mamma Mia 2 movie with Lily James.
We’re going to up here now. We’re passing the chapel on the right-hand side.
We’re going to carry on and go straight up to the cloisters.
I think you might recognize it as we get up here. Can you tell me which movie it’s been used in?
It’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, right? It is.
Wow. It’s so cool to see it in person. This is where Draco was turned into a ferret, right?
He was, by Mad-Eye Moody – or is it?
In the Goblet of Fire, we see Harry walk along the cloisters this way.
We see Harry get just around here
and he passes students who are wearing the badges that say “Potter stinks.”
He continues on this way and gets to the doorway just here.
And this is the Harry Potter tree. This is where Draco Malfoy sits in the tree.
He can sit in the tree, but you can’t, unfortunately.
I can’t sit in the tree, but at least I can take a picture of it!
Absolutely! And we do.
We always spend a few minutes here taking lots of photos.
Lovely.
I’ll take you through now to the gardens at New College.
Beautiful.
As we come back out of New College into New College Lane,
we have the beautiful Bridge of Sighs. Very beautiful.
It's said to look like the Bridge of Sighs in Venice, but it connects the two sides of this college.
There is one college, which is Hertford College, which is where Johnathan Swift was.
He wrote Gulliver’s Travels.
You might recognize this door, which was used in the filming of X-Men: First Class.
Oh yeah!
This is Radcliffe Square, which is dominated by the Radcliffe Camera.
“Camera” means room or chamber in Latin
and it’s part of the Bodleian Library, which is the University’s library.
That’s the one in all the postcards. Yeah. It’s one of the most photographed sites.
But it’s not named after Daniel Radcliffe. That’s what I was thinking.
This is looking over All Souls College, which is a 15th century college.
It’s famous as being the college that has no students. It has research fellows only.
A college without students? That’s odd.
Can you see the sundial in the front quadrangle? Yes.
That was designed by Christopher Wren when he was a research fellow there.
He designed St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.
This is the University Church and you can climb 127 steps up to the clock tower there.
The college you just peaked into is Brasenose College from 1509
and that’s the college of William Golding, the author of Lord of the Flies,
Michael Palin, one of the Monty Python actors, and David Cameron.
That’s the former Prime Minster of the U.K.
This is Exeter College here, which dates from 1314.
That’s the college where J.R.R. Tolkien studied before he taught at Merton and another college.
And also Philip Pullman, who wrote The Golden Compass or His Dark Materials.
They were filming a new TV series recently in Oxford for that.
I didn’t know they were doing a TV series. They are – with James McAvoy.
In the movie The Golden Compass,
we see Lara running away from the Egyptian boys here in Radcliffe Square.
I remember that scene from the movie. I love The Golden Compass.
If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it because it’s super good.
We’re going to go through to the Old Schools Quadrangle,
which is sort of part of the Bodleian Library. It’s beautiful. I think you’ll like it here.
The Old Schools Quadrangle was for the teaching of the old schools.
Above, we have the Bodleian Library,
which is one of the world’s largest university libraries.
It’s a copyright library.
There’s a lovely area here I’d love to take you to. Think Harry Potter!
I wonder what that could be?
This is the 15th century Divinity School, the university’s first classroom.
It’s a beautiful building. You might recognize it.
It was used in the first Harry Potter movie, The Philosopher’s Stone or the Sorcerer’s Stone.
This is the infirmary.
There are so many good Harry Potter locations. I am having the best time right now.
As if that isn’t enough, it was also used in the fourth movie, The Goblet of Fire.
This is where Professor McGonagall teaches Ron to dance.
Poor Ron. He was so embarrassed!
The college on the other side is Trinity College. It dates from 1555.
There’s a beautiful view into Trinity there.
Next to it, you have Balliol College, one of the oldest, which is from 1263.
Three British Prime Ministers were educated at Balliol College.
So many politicians actually went to university here.
This is Jesus College, which dates from 1571.
It was founded by a Welsh clergyman, so it has Welsh connections still today,
which is why we have the Welsh dragon here. Can you see it?
Oh, there he is. It’s a little dragon.
We’ve seen so much of Oxford University.
We have. We didn’t quite see all 38 colleges, but we saw a good selection, I think.
We saw a lot.
Thank you so much for taking me on this beautiful tour
and showing me the Harry Potter locations. That was the highlight of the tour.
It was totally my pleasure. I absolutely love showing people around.
Thank you, Heidi.
Take care. You, too.
Wow! That was an amazing tour of Oxford.
I’m going to head back to Radcliffe Square again, so come with me!
It’s competition time and, this time, you can win this really cool Gryffindor scarf
as seen in the Harry Potter movies.
I want to know, have you seen any film locations in real life?
Tell us and comment below for a chance to win this awesome scarf.
Apart from movies, there is so much literature here in Oxford.
In the next episode, I’m going to explore literary Oxford
and one of my favourite stories from Oxford: Alice in Wonderland.
The tour is over for today, but Heidi mentioned that
there is a really good viewpoint up in the tower of the University church,
so I’m going to go up there and have a look over the City of Dreaming Spires.
Next episode: Angelina in Wonderland