Is the Turf Tavern really from 1381?

No. The sign says 1381; the archive says it **opened around the end of the eighteenth century, as The Spotted Cow**. Its real distinction is position rather than age — hard against the old city wall, down an alley once called Hell Passage, deliberately outside the colleges’ jurisdiction, which is precisely why undergraduates drank there.

Which is the oldest pub in Oxford?

It depends what you mean, and the honest answer is that no single pub wins cleanly. The Bear’s record is **28 April 1241**, but the inn that carried the name stood on the High Street and closed in 1801 — the tiny pub you drink in today was its ostler’s house. The King’s Arms is the rival claimant, with an archive date of 1607. Site, name and building give three different answers.

Was Harry Potter filmed in Christ Church Great Hall?

Christ Church claims **the staircase** and nothing more — its words are that the Hall staircase “may be familiar, having been used in a number of film and television projects including *Lewis* and *Harry Potter*”. It says nothing about the Great Hall itself, and the popular correction — that the Hall inspired a set built at Leavesden — is not stated by the college either. **We assert neither.** Other Oxford locations are evidenced: New College’s cloisters and the Bodleian’s medieval rooms.

Oxford Myths Checked Against the Archives

The dates on the pub signs

Our pub pages are dated from archive records rather than from the sign outside, and three of the nine disagree with themselves.

None of this makes them less interesting. The real histories are better than the claims.

Sign vs archiveThe Turf Tavern — sign says 1381: It opened around the end of the eighteenth century, as The Spotted Cow. Its real distinction is not age but position: hard against the old city wall, down an alley once called Hell Passage, deliberately outside the colleges’ jurisdiction — which is precisely why undergraduates drank there, and still do.
Sign vs archiveThe Perch — claims 800 years: The thatched building is dated to at least the seventeenth century and is Grade II listed. That is a fine age for a pub without needing four more centuries. Lewis Carroll walked out to it from Christ Church, and it burned in 1977 and again in 2007, reopening in September 2008.
Sign vs archiveThe Bear — sign says 1242, and it is more complicated than a year: The record is 28 April 1241, when Lady Christina Pady left the site to St Frideswide’s Priory — so the sign is a year late, not early. But the inn that carried the name stood on the High Street and closed in 1801. The tiny pub you drink in today was its ostler’s house, built in the early seventeenth century. Three different things share one date.

The King’s Arms is the rival claimant to “Oxford’s oldest”, and our archive date for it is 1607. The honest answer to which pub is oldest depends entirely on whether you mean the site, the name, or the building you are standing in.

The Great Hall and Harry Potter

The most common question asked about Christ Church, and the most confidently mis-answered.

Christ Church claims the staircase, and only the staircase. Its own words are that the Hall staircase “may be familiar, having been used in a number of film and television projects including Lewis and Harry Potter”.

The Great Hall section of the same page makes no reference to Harry Potter at all. A site-restricted search of the college’s domain turned up only that staircase sentence, and a meadow trail leaflet noting the shop sells Harry Potter merchandise.

UnprovenWas the Great Hall a filming location?: We do not assert it either way. The commonly repeated line — that the Hall inspired the Leavesden set rather than being filmed in — is not stated by any source we could scope to the college. Writing it down in either direction would be inventing an answer to a question the college has not addressed.

Christ ChurchThe complete visit: history, architecture, admission and what the ticket actually opens.

Two tours, nearly the same name, and only one goes in

The Radcliffe Camera has no drop-in access of any kind. There is exactly one public route inside, and it is easy to book the wrong thing.

Easy to get wrongThe Radcliffe Camera and City of Oxford Walking Tour: This is the one that goes in — around thirty minutes inside the Camera, plus a walking tour of the city and entry to the Divinity School afterwards. It meets at the front steps of the Weston Library on Broad Street, not at the Camera. Daily in July and August; weekends only from September to June. Minimum age 11, and under-16s must be accompanied.
Easy to get wrongThe City of Oxford Walking Tour: A different product at a different price, and its own page says plainly that it does not enter the Radcliffe Camera. The names differ by four words. We nearly published the conclusion that no public route inside existed at all, on the strength of reading this page and not the other one.

Smaller things we found wrong

CorrectedSalter’s does not own the Head of the River: It owned the site. Fuller’s runs the pub, which has only been a pub since 1977. Salter’s Steamers also runs on the Isis, not the Cherwell — a distinction almost every general article about Oxford punting blurs.
UnprovenLewis Carroll and the dodo: The Alice connection to the Museum of Natural History’s dodo is widely repeated and probably true — but it does not appear on the museum’s own dodo page, so we do not assert it. It is the kind of claim that deserves a proper source rather than another repetition.

And one we got wrong ourselves

This page would be dishonest without it.

CorrectedBrasenose Lane is not cobbled: We wrote that it was, from text research. Reference photographs showed asphalt with stone edging. The truth turned out to be better than the error: the lane keeps its *central cobbled gutter — a kennel, and the last one in Oxford*. Every thoroughfare in the city once had one. Corrected across five files.

If you find something on this site that is wrong, we would rather know. Our corrections policy sets out how to report it and how we assess it.

Common questions

Is the Turf Tavern really from 1381?: No. The sign says 1381; the archive says it opened around the end of the eighteenth century, as The Spotted Cow. Its real distinction is position rather than age — hard against the old city wall, down an alley once called Hell Passage, deliberately outside the colleges’ jurisdiction, which is precisely why undergraduates drank there.
Which is the oldest pub in Oxford?: It depends what you mean, and the honest answer is that no single pub wins cleanly. The Bear’s record is 28 April 1241, but the inn that carried the name stood on the High Street and closed in 1801 — the tiny pub you drink in today was its ostler’s house. The King’s Arms is the rival claimant, with an archive date of 1607. Site, name and building give three different answers.
Was Harry Potter filmed in Christ Church Great Hall?: Christ Church claims the staircase and nothing more — its words are that the Hall staircase “may be familiar, having been used in a number of film and television projects including Lewis and Harry Potter”. It says nothing about the Great Hall itself, and the popular correction — that the Hall inspired a set built at Leavesden — is not stated by the college either. We assert neither. Other Oxford locations are evidenced: New College’s cloisters and the Bodleian’s medieval rooms.

The verdict

Age is the currency Oxford trades in, so ages get rounded up. None of the corrections here make the city less interesting — a pub built to escape college jurisdiction is a better story than a pub that is four hundred years older than it says, and the last cobbled gutter in Oxford beats a cobbled lane. Where we cannot establish something, this guide says so rather than picking the version that reads well.