Oxford for Families

The world's first university museum — free, with major collections of art and archaeology.

A specialist collection of historical musical instruments, from medieval to modern.

One of the oldest libraries in Europe — the Divinity School, Duke Humfrey's Library, and the Radcliffe Camera.

Hertford College's 1914 covered skyway over New College Lane — Oxford's most photographed bridge, despite resembling neither of the actual Bridges of Sighs.

The 23-metre Saxon-medieval tower at the centre of Oxford — climb 99 steps for a four-way panorama.

Oxford's own ice cream since 1992 — handmade, inventive, and open past midnight.

Scientific instruments from the Middle Ages to the 19th century, in the world's oldest surviving purpose-built museum.

The bench at the back of the Botanic Garden where, in the closing chapter of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials, Lyra and Will promise to sit at noon on Midsummer's day every year.

Sir Gilbert Scott's 1843 Gothic-Revival monument to Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley — the three Oxford Martyrs burned for heresy in 1555–1556.

Oxford's contemporary art gallery — free, ambitious exhibitions in the heart of the city.

Norman castle (1071) and former Victorian prison — the medieval mound, St George's Tower, and 1,000 years of overlapping use.

Dinosaurs, dodos, and Darwin's legacy — all under a Gothic Revival iron-and-glass roof.

A Victorian cabinet of curiosities — shrunken heads, totem poles, and half a million objects from every culture on earth.

James Gibbs's English Palladian rotunda (1749) — the first circular library in the country and the most photographed building in Oxford.

A brass-plaqued bench in University Parks, dedicated to J.R.R. Tolkien (1892–1973) by the Tolkien Centenary Conference in 1992 — accompanied by two trees said to represent Telperion and Laurelin, the Two Trees of Valinor.

The site, in the Oxford Botanic Garden, of the Pinus nigra under which J.R.R. Tolkien 'often spent his time reposing'.

The University's church on the High Street, with one of the best tower views in Oxford and a 13th-century spire.

City cemetery opened in 1889. The Roman Catholic section contains the grave of J.R.R. Tolkien and his wife Edith, headstone inscribed Beren and Lúthien.

Authentic Italian gelato in the Covered Market.