United States or Turks and Caicos Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
You cannot but remember what a laconic answer you gave even to my father, who recommended to you Miss Nelly D'Oily You did not like her, were your words: and that was thought sufficient.
The site of Robert's Castle is at present occupied by the County Gaol. The place is much lower, and worse lighted, than the contemporary crypt of St. Peter's-in-the-East, but not, perhaps, less interesting. The square-headed capitals have not been touched, like some of those in St. Peter's, by a later chisel. The place is dank and earthy, but otherwise much as Robert D'Oily left it.
Inside the castle walls was an immense mound, and there it stands to this day. No one rightly knows its age, and, except for the romance which hangs about anything, the origin of which is lost in the mists of ages, it adds but little to the charm of Oxford. Another grand old tower is said to have been the work of Robert D'Oily, viz. that of St. Michael's Church in Cornmarket Street.
Dunstan the archbishop dedicated and cast themselves weeping on the ground, accusing Robert D'Oily, and praying that his robbery of the monastery might be avenged, or that he might be led to make atonement."
"Four hundred and seventy-eight houses were so ruined as to be unable to pay taxes," while, "within the town or without the wall, there were but two hundred and forty-three houses which did yield tribute." With the buildings of Robert D'Oily, a follower of the Conqueror's, and the husband of an English wife, the heiress of Wigod of Wallingford, the new Oxford begins.
After the Norman Conquest, when most of the houses in the town had been destroyed, there began to be a certain severe dignity rising up with the building of the forts and the castle by Robert D'Oily, who came over with King William.
George's Tower, the only remaining fragment of the castle, is built of stones and mortar, so compact that though the walls have stood since Robert d'Oily reared it, late in the reign of the Conqueror, the stones and mortar had to be cut out as if from a mass of rock when a water-pipe was recently taken through the walls. It is now the water tower which holds the supply for Oxford prison.
Word Of The Day