However, Oxford, England has its tweedy charm and is certainly a place steeped in the history of the English-speaking world. It boasts the Ashmolean Museum, a place we should really speak of on a future Thursday, the Bodleian Library, a rather nice botanical garden, a stellar natural history museum, the assorted colleges of the University, and, of course, the one place most visually representative of Oxford: The Radcliffe Camera.
For those who enjoy television detectives, a full series of mysteries have been filmed there for the last thirty or so years, thus making Oxford, on TV at least, the city with the highest murder rate in the developed world.
While it is generally known that the University owns the libraries, museums, and gardens, it is perhaps less known that the various colleges either own or have owned their own public houses. Given the role of the pub in English history and village life, this is perhaps unsurprising.
One such pub, currently owned by St. John's College of Oxford University and formerly owned by University College, is The Eagle and Child, know colloquially as "The Bird and Baby" or "The Fowl and the Fetus". It dates from the middle of the 17th century although, as with most old institutions, its early history is a bit fuzzy. It may have served, during the English Civil War, as the unofficial headquarters of the Royalist Army; it may have been named for its patron's family crest; it may have been named for the Aquila and Antinous constellation. Again, no one really knows and, even in a place of intellectual inquiry, not too many really care.
However, there is one portion of the pub's history that is beyond question, and that is in its service as a meeting place for a collection of some of the most interesting minds of the mid-20th century. Beginning in the 1930's, a collection of Oxford faculty, that is, "dons", began to gather for lunch in the "Rabbit Room", a private back room at The Eagle and Child and, in the midst of the usual gossip and silliness, would exchange ideas for stories, characters, and other metaphoric expressions of their academic pursuits rendered through fiction. As they met, and shared these notes, the group enabled the foundation for literature that is surprisingly lively and, especially in the 21st century, still very popular.
The group of dons, named "The Inklings", would include in their core group C.S. Lewis, a professor of English and perhaps the most well-known Anglican theologian of his century, and the author of The Chronicles of Narnia and many other works oft-quoted by the earnest know-it-alls at Yale Divinity School. J.R.R. Tolkien was a member, also a professor of English and the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Charles Williams, lesser known outside of the study of Christian mysticism, poetry, and early science fiction, but still of great influence, would be the third significant participant.
Other dons, writers, and editors would come and go over the three decades of The Inklings' weekly luncheons, including the philosopher and poet Owen Barfield, and the critic Hugo Dyson. [An aside: Dyson couldn't' stand The Lord of the Rings and forced Tolkien to stop reading from his manuscript while they were eating.]
In their exchanges, from the reading of works-in-progress to their less formal conversations about literature, God, life, and the virtues and vicissitudes of Oxford, The Inkings found a safe, quiet place at The Eagle and Child from 1933 until 1963, when the death of Lewis altered the group's dynamic so significantly that, in his honor, they ended their weekly gatherings.
[Another aside: The Eagle and Child decided to renovate in 1962 and eliminated the wall that enabled the Rabbit Room's privacy. The Inklings thus moved to the pub across the street. Let that be a warning to publicans who decide to alter familiar gathering places. I'm especially thinking of you, Princeton Club of New York. That was a great, dark, slouchy, main floor bar that you once had. It was ruined, of course, and now mostly serves as a well-lit, uncomfortable gathering place for mildly-alcoholic women.]
The Eagle and Child did not let the burgeoning interest in Lewis and Tolkien go to waste, however, as the pub has been promoted as a "must-see" location in Oxford in travel guides both published and online. No doubt, this would have amused Lewis and perturbed Tolkien.
Of the public house itself, there are some things here and there online that one may read; of The Inklings, there are two books worth recommending. One bears a ridiculously long title: The Inklings: A Group of Writers Whose Literary Fantasies Still Fire the Imagination of All Those Who Seek a Truth Beyond Reality [Good Lord!]; and the second and newer, The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams.
I'm not sure what it is about Oxford that makes writers so windy, but that will likely not be the case with The Eagle and Child's current menu, which features fare such as hunter's chicken, steak [without kidney] pudding, and toad in a hole. You really have to just order it, eat it, and, if unsure, fortify with a few round of Charles Williams' cult theology and some Johnnie Walker. I'm not sure which is more intoxicating.
