Port Meadow Research Paper

It is almost mystical the kinship I have developed with Oxford in a mere two weeks. These feelings crystalized on our outing to an expanse of land that according to The Early History of Oxford by James Park still bears the old English name of the “Port Meadow.” Port Meadow, known as “Oxford’s oldest monument” is now the heart of Oxford and until the middle of the twentieth century defined the boundary of the town. It consists of 342 acres of unimproved grassland that when flooded and frozen in winter provided a perfect place for ice skating. Year round livestock grazed here as a prerogative of the Freemen of Oxford as marked by the Domesday Book which was completed in 1086 by order of King William the Conqueror. This tranquil oasis in the midst

My mother says that perhaps anyone with English heritage can probably follow their lineage in one way or the other to William the Conqueror. This may be accurate but in my imagination, I have romanticized this notion. To stand on the ground of Port Meadow and believe I am a descendent of William the Conqueror, the King of England who every succeeding monarch of England is a direct descendant is humbling whether it is true or not. As stated in The Thames Path by Leigh Hatts, William the Conqueror gave this acreage as a common that had “never been ploughed or built on, and rare plants flourished.” To this day, two hundred Oxford freemen and the commoners of Binsey and Wolvercote have grazing rights. I love nothing more than feeling a part of nature so certainly this bond to Port Meadow would be significant to me. To imagine that my ancestor would leave such a treasure of a piece of untouched countryside for me to discover 931 years after being documented in the Domesday Book in 1086 sends my thoughts into

I have always adored the story even so much so that as vice president of my high school sorority where I was solely responsible for planning our winter formal, I choose the theme to be Les Amies in Wonderland. From the moment we entered the dance, we were fully in Alice’s world. Therefore, it fascinated me to learn that Alice was based on Alice Liddell, the 10-year-old daughter of Henry George Liddell, the dean of Christ Church. According to author Charlie Lovett on his visit to Oxford, he recreated Dodson, Duckworth and the Liddell’s’ rowing excursion taken in 1862 from Folly Bridge to Port Meadow where Lovett states, “Alice leaned back in the rowboat and watched flecks of blue flicker among the branches overhead … and of her sisters Lorina and Edith giggling, but mostly she heard Mr. Dodgson weaving a tale about another Alice, a little girl who had fallen down a rabbit hole and was now having a wonderful adventure in a wonderful land.” Upon their return, Alice asked Mr. Dodgson to write down the tale for her which he did and eventually gave to her as a Christmas gift in 1864. Interestingly, Dodgson published Alice in Wonderland at his own expense and under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. In his article, Lovett affirms that, “Dodgson created this moniker by Latinizing his names Charles Lutwidge to Carolus Ludovic, then reversing the order and de-Latinizing them to Lewis