St Hugh's College

Description:

• St Hugh's may be slightly off the beaten track in north Oxford, but it's a pleasant area to explore when you've seen all the city centre has to offer, and after all, this college has an interesting history. In 1886, the first principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Elizabeth Wordsworth, rented a house to enable four financially needy women to study for Oxford examinations. She named it St Hugh's Hall in honour of a medieval predecessor of her father, the Bishop of Lincoln. This initiative was not without initial trauma. In 1911, the principal and her deputy published an anonymous account of a psychic experience they had shared in Versailles when they had apparently seen Marie-Antoinette. Although opponents to the presence of women at Oxford seized this incident as proof of lack of feminine rationality and intellect, both St Hugh's and the women's cause continued to prosper. Visits possible at most times on application.
• © wcities.com 2013