Stay at Lady Margaret Hall

I came to Oxford this summer to meet up with my husband, Adam, who was taking part in a course at Oxford University, specifically at Lady Margaret Hall (LMH). In the picture above, and some below, you see how beautiful the campus is–as well as why it’s famous.

LMH is special in that it was the first college in the University to admit female students. As the picture above explains, it wasn’t until 1879 that women were allowed to attend Oxford University (even though they could not take degrees until 1920).

In the building with the dining hall, I saw this display dedicated to the wonderfully name Eglantyne Jeff, a student at LHM from 1895-1898. I I had never heard of her before, but I learned that she and her sister founded the Save the Children campaign, which tried to help children in poverty. As the bio says, she had the nickname of “White Flame” because she had a “burning conviction” to help the poor.

She also wrote poetry about it all! I appreciate the one above. “Come into Hell, my little child” made me laugh! She talks about the kids eating mud, working until their fingers bleed, and being torn physically and mentally. How uplifting. 😀

For the past week Adam and I have been staying at the dorms at LMH so that he could be onsite. It has been a long time since I stayed in a dorm room–sixteen years! It was funny to be sleeping in the same room as Adam but in a separate twin-sized bed. We ended up pushing them together. See my previous post for more information about the ensuite toilet/shower.

Adam and I ate at the dining hall every morning for breakfast and most evenings for dinner. The dining hall has tables situated longways for students, and then there are the faculty tales perpendicular to the student tables. One of the sets of faculty tables is on a platform. Sorry that I didn’t take pics of that.

We also decided to try some British candies. See the vending machine above. We chose two candy bars: a Lion and a Boost bar. Both were yummy! They reminded me of a Milky Way.

We also walked everywhere. I could have walked through a neighborhood to get to City Centre, but I chose the path through the park behind the campus. I walked to the Oxford City Centre every day for a week, which took me about 30 min to walk 0.7 miles (1.4 miles roundtrip).

In my next post I’ll tell you where I walked every day and what I did there.