In Praise of... Open Doors

Many cities have a split, real or imagined, between their universities and their civic aspects - ‘town versus gown’.

Oxford feels this tension more than most – the ancient university dominates the centre, sitting awkwardly alongside newer, brasher and frankly uglier civic buildings (and people).

The design of colleges doesn’t help: enchanting, mysterious piles with beautifully manicured lawns, but often only peaked at over high walls or through iron railings, there to keep out the hoi-polloi.

How refreshing, then, to witness the doors of the city’s colleges and many other intriguing places being thrown open the other weekend for all to enter.

In London, regular open weekends are a great way of seeing the quirky or otherwise inaccessible.  My native village in the Pennines hosts open gardens, popular with the green-fingered and long-nosed.  And in Brighton I adore the open houses, a brilliant way of overcoming the lack of exhibition space during the annual festival by simply turning ordinary homes into galleries (though I suspect as many go to snoop as to appreciate the art).

Oxford Open Doors is in this fine tradition, and I just loved being able to wander freely into old colleges.  Many times I have walked along the High Street with no idea that Queen’s atmospheric cloisters lay just the other side.  I did know Trinity had wonderful lawns, having gazed jealously at them from Broad Street, so it was fantastic to just stroll in.  Best of all, All Souls had the most stunning church carvings, put on a brass band for the guests, and even let us onto the grass (an honour, I’m told, generally afforded only to ‘fellows’, whoever they may be).

It's not all colleges - we also visited the fantastic Pegasus Theatre, the antithesis of elitism: this lovely new space bends over backwards to encourage young, disabled or disadvantaged locals to get involved – all power to them.

Of course many visitors go just to avoid the usual entrance fees (it’s certainly why I went to the castle’s fascinating ‘prison unlocked’ display that day).  And I’m sure some places open reluctantly, like snooty artisos watching National Trust welly-wearers tramping their estates, a slightly less unpleasant alternative to paying taxes.  Could it be that some colleges grudgingly open up once a year and hold their noses for the weekend, just to ensure they can keep the doors firmly closed at all other times?

Some dismiss it as tokenistic, but I’d rather see it as the thin end of a welcome wedge.  ‘Car-free days’, ‘Meat-free Fridays’ and indeed ‘the season of goodwill’ are all well and good – but can’t we dream of bike-free weekends, meaty Mondays and the odd misanthropic moments, on the understanding these become the exception not the rule? 

So thank you Oxford Open Doors – I look forward to your redundancy, replaced with a new normality of everyday openness, perhaps with the occasional ‘Locked Door weekends’.