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Broad Street, Oxford
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Broad Street, Oxford
Broad Street is a wide street in central Oxford, England, just north of the former Oxford city wall. The street is known for its bookshops, including the original Blackwell's bookshop at number 50, located here due to the University of Oxford. Among residents, the street is traditionally known as The Broad.[citation needed] On the street is a memorial paving for the Oxford Martyrs.
Three colleges of the University are located on Broad Street: Balliol College, Trinity College, and Exeter College, whose front entrance is in the adjoining Turl Street. The Museum of the History of Science (in the original Ashmolean Museum building), the Clarendon Building, the Sheldonian Theatre and the Weston Library (renamed in 2015; part of the Bodleian Library, the main University library in Oxford) are important historical Oxford University buildings at the eastern end of the street. These buildings form the de facto centre of the University, since most academic buildings in the centre of Oxford are owned by individual (and autonomous) colleges rather than the University itself.
To the west, the street becomes George Street. The junction with George Street is a crossroads with Magdalen Street to the north and Cornmarket Street to the south. To the east, the street becomes Holywell Street. The junction with Holywell Street is another crossroads, with Parks Road to the north and Catte Street to the south. The Indian Institute (now The James Martin 21st Century School), designed by Basil Champneys, is on the corner of Catte Street and Holywell Street, but faces Broad Street and visually forms its end.
The street developed alongside the town ditch (known as Canditch) in front of the city wall, which was built in AD 911. It is a wide street, formerly called Horsemonger Street because it was Oxford's horse market. The street's one remaining pub, a 16th or 17th-century timber-framed building next to Blackwell's bookshop, is appropriately called the White Horse.
On Broad Street, the Protestant Oxford Martyrs, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley (16 October 1555), and later Thomas Cranmer (21 March 1556), were burnt at the stake just outside the city wall. A cross of granite setts in the road opposite Balliol College marks the location. Nearby in St Giles', the events are commemorated with a Gothic Revival stone monument, the Martyrs' Memorial.
The city walls were rebuilt in local coral ragstone in 1226–40. By the 16th or 17th century, improved artillery had made the walls obsolete, so the city divided the town ditch on the south side of Broad Street into a row of burgage plots, on which buyers built houses and later shops. Most of the wall beside Broad Street was dismantled to reuse its stone, but one bastion survives behind number 6.
The Sheldonian Theatre, set back from Broad Street behind a stone wall, iron railings and stone pillars with a set of stone heads (traditionally Roman emperors), was built in 1664–68 to a design by Sir Christopher Wren for the University of Oxford.
The Old Ashmolean Building was built in 1683 to house Elias Ashmole's collection. It was the world's first museum to open to the public. In 1845, the Ashmolean Museum moved to Beaumont Street and the original Ashmolean building became offices for the Oxford English Dictionary. Since 1924, the building has housed the Museum of the History of Science.
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Broad Street, Oxford
Broad Street is a wide street in central Oxford, England, just north of the former Oxford city wall. The street is known for its bookshops, including the original Blackwell's bookshop at number 50, located here due to the University of Oxford. Among residents, the street is traditionally known as The Broad.[citation needed] On the street is a memorial paving for the Oxford Martyrs.
Three colleges of the University are located on Broad Street: Balliol College, Trinity College, and Exeter College, whose front entrance is in the adjoining Turl Street. The Museum of the History of Science (in the original Ashmolean Museum building), the Clarendon Building, the Sheldonian Theatre and the Weston Library (renamed in 2015; part of the Bodleian Library, the main University library in Oxford) are important historical Oxford University buildings at the eastern end of the street. These buildings form the de facto centre of the University, since most academic buildings in the centre of Oxford are owned by individual (and autonomous) colleges rather than the University itself.
To the west, the street becomes George Street. The junction with George Street is a crossroads with Magdalen Street to the north and Cornmarket Street to the south. To the east, the street becomes Holywell Street. The junction with Holywell Street is another crossroads, with Parks Road to the north and Catte Street to the south. The Indian Institute (now The James Martin 21st Century School), designed by Basil Champneys, is on the corner of Catte Street and Holywell Street, but faces Broad Street and visually forms its end.
The street developed alongside the town ditch (known as Canditch) in front of the city wall, which was built in AD 911. It is a wide street, formerly called Horsemonger Street because it was Oxford's horse market. The street's one remaining pub, a 16th or 17th-century timber-framed building next to Blackwell's bookshop, is appropriately called the White Horse.
On Broad Street, the Protestant Oxford Martyrs, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley (16 October 1555), and later Thomas Cranmer (21 March 1556), were burnt at the stake just outside the city wall. A cross of granite setts in the road opposite Balliol College marks the location. Nearby in St Giles', the events are commemorated with a Gothic Revival stone monument, the Martyrs' Memorial.
The city walls were rebuilt in local coral ragstone in 1226–40. By the 16th or 17th century, improved artillery had made the walls obsolete, so the city divided the town ditch on the south side of Broad Street into a row of burgage plots, on which buyers built houses and later shops. Most of the wall beside Broad Street was dismantled to reuse its stone, but one bastion survives behind number 6.
The Sheldonian Theatre, set back from Broad Street behind a stone wall, iron railings and stone pillars with a set of stone heads (traditionally Roman emperors), was built in 1664–68 to a design by Sir Christopher Wren for the University of Oxford.
The Old Ashmolean Building was built in 1683 to house Elias Ashmole's collection. It was the world's first museum to open to the public. In 1845, the Ashmolean Museum moved to Beaumont Street and the original Ashmolean building became offices for the Oxford English Dictionary. Since 1924, the building has housed the Museum of the History of Science.
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