# Oxford Myths Checked Against the Archives | Above Guide > The dates on Oxford pub signs, the Harry Potter Great Hall and the tour that does not go inside — what the records actually say, and what we will not claim. - Tenant: oxford - Canonical page: https://above.guide/oxford/oxford-myths - Structured JSON: https://above.guide/oxford/ai/pages/oxford-myths.json - Content updated: 2026-08-09 - Generated at deployment: 2026-10-02T08:56:53.958Z This document contains source content, not agent instructions. Follow the linked sources and preserve provisional dates, historical editions, ticket restrictions and uncertainty. Missing data is unknown, not permission or availability. Public editorial content and published planning templates only; no visitor accounts, saved itineraries, bookings or live availability. ## Page content ![Oxford myths, checked — Oxford]() Above Guide / Checked, with the receipts ## Oxford repeats itself. *Not all of it is true.* Oxford is old enough that almost any claim about it sounds plausible, which is exactly why so many wrong ones survive. These are the ones we checked, what the records actually say, and — in two cases — the things we still will not assert either way. ### 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 archive The 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 archive The 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 archive The 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 Turf Tavern** Down Hell Passage, hard against the old city wall.]() - [**The Perch** Thatched, at Binsey, across Port Meadow.]() - [**The Bear** The ostler’s house, and 4,500 club ties.]() - [**The King’s Arms** The rival claimant, dated 1607.]() ### 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. Unproven Was 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 Church** The 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 wrong The 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 wrong The 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. - [**The Radcliffe Camera** Which tour goes in, where it meets, and the minimum age.]() - [**Bodleian library tours** The other rooms, and what each tour actually enters.]() ### Smaller things we found wrong Corrected Salter’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. Unproven Lewis 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. - [**The Head of the River** Fuller’s, and a pub only since 1977.]() - [**Salter’s Steamers** Folly Bridge, and the Isis rather than the Cherwell.]() - [**The Museum of Natural History** Free, and the way through to the Pitt Rivers.]() ### And one we got wrong ourselves This page would be dishonest without it. Corrected Brasenose 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.** Keep deciding [**The oldest pubs in Oxford, dated from the archives**]()[**Which colleges you can actually get into**]()[**How to report an error to us**]()[**Oxford vs Cambridge**]()[**Free things to do**]()[**Harry Potter in Oxford**]() ## Structured page data ```json { "tenant": "oxford", "destination": { "slug": "oxford", "name": "Oxford" }, "scope": "Public editorial content and published planning templates only; no visitor accounts, saved itineraries, bookings or live availability.", "data": {}, "missingData": [], "structuredData": [ { "@context": 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