Why Is It Called "City of Dreaming Spires?" Oxford has long
served as an inspiring landscape to writers, artists, and
dreamers. In his poem, Thyrsis, written to commemorate his
friend, Arthur Hugh Clough, who died in 1861, Matthew Arnold
famously captured Oxford in the view from Hinksey Hill with the
evocative expression, "that sweet city with her dreaming
spires," describing the elegance of the famous university
buildings. Today, the view from Hinksey Hill is less dreamy,
despite the greensward foreground of "Matthew Arnold's Field,"
which was purchased by the Oxford Preservation Trust in 1928.
Now, those spires are best appreciated from atop St. Mary's or
Carfax Towers in town. Other literary treats lie in Oxford's
Christ Church College, where Charles Dodgson (a.k.a. Lewis
Carroll) was a mathematics tutor from 1855 to 1898. He created
his Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking
Glass to entertain the daughters of Dean Henry Liddell. Much of
his inspiration came from Christ Church, including