OXFORD UNIVERSITY.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 301, 4 December 1936, Page 6

OXFORD UNIVERSITY.

ITS FACE IS CHANGING “PECK” TO BE A LAWN. OXFORD. Sept. 3. The long vacatio.n at Oxford still has six weeks to run, but the stately college quadrangles are far from silent. Instead of echoing with the clamjur of undergraduates they are resounding with the ring of the stonemason’s hammer and the workman’s pick. The face of Oxford is changng. Boathouse Now. Merton, Hertford and Magdalen rave big new blocks of buildings confining new rooms for undergraduates, md huge wall spaces in St. Johns, Jhrist Church, and the Queen’s Colege have been completely refaced. Most revolutionary of these colleges s Christ, Church. . Within her historic portals lies the university’s most distinctive quadrangle Peckwater —■ which is in the process of losing its distinctiveness, for its covering of gravel is being converted into a lawn. Barge Scrapped. This summer Christ Church became the first college to dispense with its historic barge on the River Isis and to build a modern boathouse-curn-grandstand instead. And Christ Church was the first college to larder its kitchens and stock its wine vaults at economical wholesale prices, instead of ordering pro visions piecemeal in the extravagant time-honoured system. This change is in keeping with the spirit which has prompted other innovations at Christ Church.