J.R.R. Tolkein & C.S. Lewis

There must be something quite beguiling about the dreaming spires of Oxford in Oxfordshire that inspired writers like J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis to produce some of their best work. Or perhaps it was Oxford’s honey-coloured buildings and centuries of traditions that fuelled their fantasies and colourful characters.

Much of the life of J.R.R. Tolkien was spent in Oxford, and it was at his home in Northmoor Road that he wrote many of his books; he was best known for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. For a while, a young J.R.R. Tolkien worked for the Oxford English Dictionary based in the Old Ashmolean Building. Today the building is the Museum of the History of Science. Tolkien was laid to rest in Wolvercote Cemetery, Oxford.

Magdalen College played a very important role in the life of C.S. Lewis, where he lived whilst working on his most famed book the Chronicles of Narnia.

Both writers were firm friends, and big chapters of their lives were played out in the colleges of Oxford where they taught. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien liked to meet for a drink in the Eagle and Child pub in Oxford, where they pioneered a club, the Inklings, reading aloud from current works during their regular meetings. The pub is still there so why not call in and take a look at memorabilia displayed in the Rabbit Room, which they regularly frequented, and raise a glass to them both?