Informal groups of teachers and clerics began gathering around the town church of St Mary’s in the 1100s and then in the early 13th century Oxford University was officially recognised.  Soon after, the first colleges were founded: University College, Balliol and Merton.  Thereafter the university and the colleges expanded alongside each other both in numbers and buildings.  Some of these buildings were great colleges such as Christ Church or New College, others were for the use of the university like The Sheldonian, The Radcliffe Camera and the Bodleian Library.  Add the vision of benefactors over the centuries and today you see the finest collection of medieval buildings in England.

Speaker: Alastair Lack – read Modern History at University College, Oxford between 1964-8 and subsequently taught in India and worked in publishing in New York.  He then worked for the BBC for more than twenty-six years, from 1971 to 1997, making programmes for both television and radio, but almost always for the World Service.  Having presented, produced and edited a wide range of programmes from current affairs to the arts, his final position was as Head of English Programmes, with responsibility for all non-news English programmes on the World Service.  Moving to Oxford, he became The Secretary of The Oxford University Society ( the organisation that supports Oxford alumni groups throughout the world), and then moved to freelance work, including Oxford city and university guiding, local journalism and tutoring students in media studies.