Did you know that you can get into Christ Church - well, more specifically into the the Memorial Gardens - without going through that big gate in St Aldate's? At any time of day or night? No? Well, I'll tell you how, or at least I'll tell you how we did it many years ago (i.e. way back in the last century, when I was a student).
Some time in the 1960s my mate Bill, the (self-appointed) captain of the University canoe club and I got hold of 2 kayaks and paddled up stream from Folly Bridge to the rather cunningly concealed entrance to the Trill Mill stream. I'm not quite sure what gave Bill the idea in the first place, or how he even knew such a stream existed. It's possible that he'd heard that T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) had managed the feat about 60 years earlier, when he was an undergraduate at Jesus College.
He (Bill, that is) had done a little research. "It could be a bit narrow and twisty, so we'd better take 2 boats - and we'd better each take at least a couple of torches" he'd said at the planning stage a few days earlier. "I've also no idea how strong the current might be....it could be a bit tricky if we have to go back and we can't turn around." With those encouraging words I almost dropped out, but I suppose the bravado of youth won through, although another somewhat sobering thought did occur to me - what if we got separated? That might have been a tad worrying, at least for a sensitive chap such as myself. After all, it was going to be pitch dark. I refrained from voicing this particular concern to Bill who seemed determined to press ahead come what may.
As I recall it, the entrance was on the right, somewhere near Oxford Castle. I doubt if I could find it today; anyway, according to another friend who went through the tunnel few years after me as a stunt for Radio Oxford, the entrance is now blocked off. We went in, Bill in the lead and me somewhat apprehensively a little astern. At first it wasn't too bad, but it soon got so dark that I could make out Bill's boat only with my torch. Even then I occasionally thought I'd lost him when he negotiated the odd bend. I seemed to be able to touch the roof and the walls pretty easily. This reassured me slightly until another slight concern hit me - what if it gets even narrower and we get wedged in?
We were rather vague as to where exactly we went. We rather hoped we would go under Carfax, although how we would know it if we did, we didn't know. Suddenly there was a dim light overhead: it turned out to be a drain cover, and there were traffic noises. Suddenly somebody walked over the drain. I remember a sense of relief - we were no longer alone in the world. Well, perhaps it was Carfax, but we found out later it's more likely that we had been crossing under St Aldate's, probably near Alice's shop.
In fact our voyage ended relatively soon after the drain cover incident. A dim light showed ahead: eventually we emerged, blinking in the unaccustomed light, into that little pool that separates the tunnel exit from the bridge in the Memorial Gardens which all the tourists on their way to visit Christ Church now must cross, gawping at the (Harry Potter) hall to their left as they do so.
We had one remaining problem. That little pool has pretty steep sides; even if we could have clambered out, wrecking the flowers as we did so, there was no way that we could have got the canoes out. There was nothing for it but to continue down to the Thames, hoping we weren't accosted by the Dean or someone for trespassing.
One final point of interest. The 'Oxford Mail' carried an article a couple of years ago claiming that Lawrence had discovered an ancient Victorian era punt in the tunnel, complete with 3 dead students, no doubt with boaters and blazers, who'd supposedly got stuck years earlier. This I'm assured can't be true: the stream is far too narrow for a punt. Good story though!
