The Master’s Weekend

The Master, Mike Harris, is delighted to invite Freemen, Liverymen and guests to join him in Oxford for the 2025 Master’s Weekend. The weekend offers a great opportunity to explore Oxford’s Colleges and Culture with friends. There are some planned activities or you are welcome just to wander around the City and enjoy shopping, punting or visiting some of the buildings and gardens for yourself, before joining us at a black-tie dinner on the Saturday evening in Hertford College.

The Master hopes that you will consider the Membership Committee’s campaign to “Just Add One” and invite a guest to join you. For guided tours where capacity is more limited, Freemen and Liverymen may bring one guest each; for the Dinner, you can book up to 4 seats.

The number of possible permutations of attendee names, numbers and payments makes this too complex to book in one go, so please book separately for each activity, via the members’ area of the website. You can pay for each element by card, through the site, or make one payment for the total cost via BACS. If you pay by BACS, please allow 72 hours for your payment receipt to be available in your member account.

Friday 5 September, 4-6pm

On Friday afternoon we will start at Corpus Christi College (Oxford’s smallest college by numbers and “the place where it all started” for the Clerk) with a private tour of the College and an afternoon tea of sandwiches, savouries, scones and cake. Cost £35 per head, max 30 people.

6.30-7.30pm

A private, guided out-of-hours tour of the Bodleian Library will take us into the famous domed Radcliffe Camera, the medieval Duke Humfrey’s library and the passages underneath Broad Street that allowed books from all over Oxford to reach students in the various reading rooms. Cost £20 per head, max 30 people.

The rest of the evening is at leisure.

Saturday 6 September, 11.30am

On Saturday morning we will be visiting The Ashmolean Museum, The University of Oxford’s Museum of Art and Archeology. The guided tour of museum highlights will start at 11.30am, lasting about an hour. Cost £10 per person, max 40 people.

The Ashmolean has a fantastic roof top café and restaurant with seating outside on an ad hoc basis, or you can book into the Restaurant should you so wish. For a simple coffee or sandwich, there is also a small café on the lower ground floor. www.ashmolean.org

The afternoon is free so you can explore Oxford and prepare for the Main Activity:

Black Tie Dinner, Hertford College, 6.45-10pm

By kind permission of the Bursar, we will be dining by candlelight in the Main Hall of Hertford College (“the one with the Bridge”).

Our evening will start at 6.45pm with a drinks reception in the College Chapel , followed by a 3-course Dinner with wine in the Main Hall, and then, following the Hertford Tradition, we will transfer to the “Old Hall” for cheese, port and conversation, with the evening finishing at 10.00pm. The dress code is Black Tie. Livery badges are not required. The cost is £135 per person; max 80 people.

Sunday 7 September

Nothing is organised formally today. You might like to spot the deer in the grounds of Magdalen College, walk through Christ Church Meadow to the boathouses and enjoy a drink by the river, or visit the Oxford Botanic Garden, the oldest botanic garden in the UK. Cost £7.20 (concessions £5.90), payable by card only. Visit Oxford Botanic Garden | Oxford Botanic Garden and Arboretum

Accommodation

You will need to organise your own accommodation. Oxford has many hotels but rooms are always in high demand, so do not delay. Here are a few options:

• Hertford College is offering us full occupancy of their hotel-quality rooms at 88-90 Abingdon Road, about 20 minutes’ walk away from the College, for £75 per room per night. There are 12 double rooms and 2 twin rooms. Linens and toiletries are provided, there are tea and coffee making facilities in the room but there is no main reception, lounge or parking.

Bookings will be taken on a first come, first served basis, by email only to: events@hertford.ox.ac.uk. You will need to state that you are attending a Dinner at the College on 6th September with the Spectacle Makers and be clear about which nights you wish to book (subject to availability, the rate of £75 per room may also be available for the nights of 4th, 5th and 7th September as long as you are also staying on 6th). Room keys must be collected from and returned to the College Porter at Hertford College (check in from 3pm, check out 10am - see the advice below on How to Get There). A light continental breakfast buffet will be available in the Hall at Hertford College at no extra charge for anyone booked into the Abingdon Road accommodation, alongside any other conference guests.

• There are a couple of Premier Inns close by, the most central being the Premier Inn Oxford Westgate, right in the City Centre (c£80 per room per night) Oxford City Centre (Westgate) Hotel | Premier Inn

• The weekend falls outside the university term so single travellers may be able to book a no-frills student room in other colleges’ accommodation. Note that not all rooms may be accessible or ensuite. University Rooms

• Malmaison, Oxford Castle, 3 New Road, Oxford OX1 1AY - is a unique hotel, in a former prison with bar, brasserie and valet parking at an extra charge. Bed and breakfast for a double room costs c £250 per night. Malmaison Oxford

• Cotswold Lodge Hotel, 66A Banbury Road, Park Town, Oxford OX2 6JP – is a comfortable family-run 4* hotel with full restaurant and bar and free on-site parking. Bed and breakfast from £280 per night. The Cotswold Lodge Hotel

• 5 star hotels in the centre of Oxford include The Randolph, The Randolph Hotel (Hilton Graduate) (£375 B&B), Courtyard by Marriott, Courtyard Oxford City Centre Paradise St. £310 per night, The Old Parsonage and The Old Bank The Oxford Collection ® | City Centre Hotels & Restaurants and the very new The Store, on Broad Street The Store Oxford (room rates c£425 per night for each of these hotels). There may be a 2-night minimum stay; parking arrangements vary.

How to Get There

Getting to Oxford is straightforward. The train station is around 15 minutes’ walk from the centre. Coaches from London (Oxford Express, Oxford Tube) run very frequently and stop at the central bus station at Gloucester Green, only 5 minutes’ walk from Hertford College. There are good motorway and main road connections. The problem for drivers comes as you approach the City Centre. There are strict Zero Emissions Zones and many parking restrictions in the centre, as well as several areas prohibited to private cars around the outskirts of the City.

You will not be able to drive to Hertford College, on Catte Street, itself. If you are collecting room keys, the best thing to do is to head for Wadham College where there are several short-stay waiting and parking spaces along the road, as well as it being possible for one person to get out of the car and walk the 2 minutes to Hertford College while the other drives around the mini roundabout for a while!

There are a few short stay spaces on Merton Street, if you are coming to Corpus Christi College on Friday afternoon, at a cost of £15.20 for 2 hours up to 6.30pm. Some parking is available to the north, on St Giles, for the same cost during the day or £7.60 for an evening rate which operates from 6.30-10pm (no charge after 10pm). There is a large underground car park at the Westgate shopping centre but this will be busy on Saturday. The best advice is to use the Park and Ride car parks around the ring-road. Park and Ride sites – Oxford City Council