Clarendon Building. As a member of various boards and committees at Oxford, Tolkien attended numerous meetings in the Clarendon Building in Broad Street, opposite Blackwell’s Bookshop. The building (not open to tourists) was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor and built in 1712–13 for the Oxford University Press (*Publishers); it was used for that purpose until 1829. During Tolkien’s time at Oxford the Clarendon Building contained University offices. It is now part of the Bodleian Library.
Corpus Christi College. Founded in 1517, Corpus Christi College is located on the south side of Merton Street, west of Merton College. Tolkien stayed at Corpus Christi in December 1909 when he first sought to win a scholarship or exhibition to Oxford. His friend *G.B. Smith became an exhibitioner at Corpus Christi in Michaelmas Term 1913. On 22 November 1914 Tolkien read a paper, The Finnish National Epic (*On ‘The Kalevala’ or Land of Heroes), to the Sundial Society at Corpus Christi. On 7 June 1947 he was one of the members of a committee appointed by the English Faculty Board who met at Corpus Christi to draft an outline proposal for an English Preliminary Examination.
Eagle and Child. Public house, located at 49 St Giles’ since 1650, named for the family crest of the Earl of Derby (a coronet with eagle and child) but popularly known as the ‘Bird and Baby’. From about 1939 until the early 1950s the *Inklings met informally on Tuesdays (later, Mondays) for conversation and refreshment, usually at the Eagle and Child. *C.S. Lewis liked its traditional character, as well as its landlord, Charlie Blagrove (d. 1948); and it was conveniently close to the Taylor Institution where many English School lectures were given during the Second World War. The Inklings usually assembled in late morning in the pub’s small back room. According to *John Wain, Lewis preferred the open tavern, and deeply regretted that Tolkien later arranged for them to meet in the Blagrove family’s private parlour. In 1962, when the parlour was opened to the public and joined on to the main bar, the Inklings moved across St Giles’ to the Lamb and Flag.
There are many references to the Eagle and Child in Letters and in the diaries of *Warren Lewis (Brothers and Friends). See also John Wain, ‘Push Bar to Open’, Oxford Magazine, Eighth Week, Hilary Term (1988). A photograph of the Eagle and Child is reproduced in The Inklings, p. 8b.
Eastgate Hotel. The Eastgate Hotel at 73 High Street was built in 1899–1900 and later enlarged. It is close to Magdalen College where *C.S. Lewis was a Fellow, and to Merton College, where Tolkien was Professor of English Language and Literature from 1945 to 1959. For many years Tolkien and Lewis would meet in Lewis’s rooms in Magdalen on Monday morning, and then take a drink together in the Eastgate. It was often favoured by Tolkien for lunch or dinner when he had guests to entertain.
Examination Schools. Designed in a neo-Jacobean style by Thomas Graham Jackson and constructed in 1876–82, the Examination Schools in the High Street are used for lectures as well as examinations. Tolkien knew the ‘Schools’ as an undergraduate, and taught and examined in them as an Oxford professor. He gave most of his lectures in the Examination Schools, except during the Second World War when the building was used as a military hospital; the English Faculty Library, normally housed in the Schools, was then moved to the Taylor Institution and later to its new building in Manor Road.
Exeter College. Bounded by Turl Street, Broad Street, and Brasenose Lane, Exeter College was founded in 1314 as Stapeldon Hall by Walter de Stapeldon, Bishop of Exeter. Most of its present architecture dates from the seventeenth century, notably the Hall built in 1618, or from the nineteenth century, including two Gothic Revival buildings by Sir George Gilbert Scott, the library (1855–6) and the chapel (1856–9). In the latter is a fine tapestry designed by Edward Burne-Jones and *William Morris. A photograph of Exeter College before the First World War is reproduced in Life and Legend, p. 24.
Tolkien won a Classical Exhibition to Exeter in December 1910 and came up to the College in Michaelmas Term 1911. His rooms until Trinity Term 1914 were in an Exeter building called Swiss Cottage (on the site of the present Blackwell’s art bookshop), which looked out on Turl Street – see his sketch Turl Street, Oxford in Artist and Illustrator, fig. 19, and his cover for an ‘Exeter College Smoker’ programme reproduced in Life and Legend, p. 26, and The Tolkien Family Album, p. 32. He usually had breakfast in his rooms, brought to him by his scout (college servant), and dinner in the Hall. In February 1913 he sent his fiancée (*Edith Tolkien) a postcard with a view of the Hall and an ‘X’ marking the spot where he usually sat: see Life and Legend, p. 35. He had to pay weekly for any food and drink brought to his room. Surviving battels (re-used by Tolkien for notes) show that he was charged for tea, coffee, milk and cream, sugar, dry toast, butter, jam, marmalade and honey, anchovy and buttered toast, cakes, crumpets and muffins, porridge, eggs, fruit, potted meat and pickles, sardines, chutney and sauce, cider and claret cup and mulled claret, and lemon squash, as well as tobacco and cigarettes.
Tolkien was active in College life, joining inter alia the Exeter College Essay Club and the Stapeldon Society (*Societies and clubs), in both of which he held office. He was a member of the committee appointed by the Stapeldon Society to organize the elaborate dinner held 6 June 1914 at which the Junior Common Room entertained the Senior Common Room to celebrate the Sexcentenary of the College’s foundation. He also often attended social events such as concerts and the annual Freshman’s Wine. For part of his time at Oxford he played on the Exeter College rugby team; see photograph, Life and Legend, p. 25. From Hilary Term 1919 until Trinity Term 1920, while he was working in Oxford after the war, Tolkien was an honorary member of the Essay Club, to whom he read The Fall of Gondolin (*The Book of Lost Tales) on 10 March 1920. At a meeting of the Club in November 1926, after his return to Oxford from *Leeds, Tolkien read a paper on the Elder Edda.
On 26 July 1933 Tolkien and *Hugo Dyson invited C.S. Lewis and his brother Warren to dine at Exeter College. Warren Lewis on that occasion described the college as ‘a delightful place, the chief feature being the garden – a quiet oblong of close shaven, walled and treed fringed grass, ending in a little paved court with a sunk pond where a small fountain plays on water lilies: this court is overlooked from a terrace or rampart which is approached by a flight of stone steps from the lawn.’ From the terrace Lewis found ‘a most unusual view of Oxford: the terrace is perhaps fifteen feet above the square in which the Bodleian stands … it looked wonderfully dignified, backed by St Mary’s and a pale yellow afterglow of sunset’ (Brothers and Friends, pp. 105–6).
Tolkien retained an affection for Exeter College, though as a professor he was later attached to Pembroke and Merton colleges. His daughter *Priscilla remembered a ‘conflict of loyalties’ one year during the annual college Boat Races, ‘when Exeter were rowing against Pembroke: whilst having tea with us … on the Pembroke [spectators’] barge, he shouted for their opponents!’ (The Tolkien Family Album, p. 77).
Exeter College made Tolkien an honorary fellow in 1958.
According to J.R.L. Maddicott in the booklet Exeter College, Oxford (published by the college c. 1990), Tolkien has eclipsed the Exeter authors that went before, even William Morris. ‘It is safe to say that his later books have been more widely read than those of all the Exeter men since the fourteenth century and that he has almost certainly given more pleasure to more people than any other single member of the College’ (p. 22). Not all of the biographical details given for Tolkien in the booklet are correct, however, and later investigation refuted the attribution to Tolkien of a suggestion left in the Junior Common Room that ‘a good English dictionary’ be purchased for that space.
See further, John Garth, ‘Tolkien, Exeter College and the Great War’, in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings: Sources of Inspiration (2008); Frances Cairncross, ed., Exeter College: The First 700 Years (2013); and John Garth, Tolkien and Exeter College (2014). The latter reproduces a previously unpublished sketch by Tolkien of Exeter College Hall, as well as one of Broad Street in Oxford, and several previously unpublished photographs of Tolkien as an