Visiting Oxford
Oxford Castle
Local history
Apartments in Oxford in St Thomas' Street is in the heart of medieval Oxford. A stroll from Oxford's cosmopolitan restaurants, many exclusive shops, theatres and cinemas, not forgetting the magnificence of the University colleges that give the city its unique character.
The Parish Church at the east end of St Thomas' Street dates from the 12th Century and takes its name from Thomas Beckett. In 1154 Henry II placed his friend Thomas Beckett as Chancellor and later Archbishop of Canterbury.
And, as history records, on the 29 December 1170 several of Henry's men, acting on their own sense of outrage, murdered Thomas on the altar of Canterbury Cathedral . In 1173 Thomas Beckett was canonised by the Pope after unprecedented popular devotion to the martyred bishop.
Close by, across the Quaking Bridge into Tidmarsh Lane is the Norman Castle Keep circa 1100, where Matilda the Empress Queen was imprisoned, only to escape across the frozen Castle Mill stream, down St. Thomas's Street to Osney and safety.
In 1546 after the dissolution of Monasteries, Henry VIII gave most of the parish of St. Thomas' to Christ Church College, which he founded.
Nearby at the bridge in Park End Street, John Wesley, founder of the Methodists preached and early baptists took their vow of faith. Every lane and street in Oxford has its own history to tell.