Merton Street, Oxford
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Merton Street, Oxford by David Hallam-Jones as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Merton Street, Oxford
Image: © David Hallam-Jones Taken: 27 Jul 2013
Merton Street links Oriel Square (2-3 minutes walk away behind the photographer) with High Street at its northeastern end. This section of it, travelling from west to east, runs parallel with - and to the south of - High Street. The academic and author J. R. R. Tolkien had rooms in Merton Street towards the end of his life, i.e. the early 1970s. The C16/17th property on the left, originally two or three houses, is identified as "Postmasters' Hall" (a.k.a "Portionists' Hall"). A portionist was a Merton College scholar who had earned a certain academically-related allowance (i.e. portion). Thus, this might indicate that this was a warden's residence? A blue plaque on a wall identifies this as the birthplace and sometime home of Anthony Wood, a.k.a. Anthony à Wood (1632-95), an antiquarian researcher and historian.
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
51.751394
Longitude
-1.252181