Poets The first poet to leave a record of a visit to the hill was
Arthur Hugh Clough. In his diary for 1841, edited by
Anthony Kenny, he describes how a walk across the hill inspired the ninth of his 'Blank misgivings of a creature moving about in worlds not realized'; however, he was concerned over his family's financial straits and his impending final exams, and he found the barrenness of the scene under a grey February sky depressing. When
Matthew Arnold came up to Oxford later in 1841, Clough introduced him to Boars Hill, which later provided the inspiration and setting for two of his best-known poems,
The Scholar Gipsy (1853) and
Thyrsis (1866), the latter written in memory of Clough. The famous phrase in the latter "the dreaming spires" encouraged people to visit the hill and settle there. Three prominent poets lived on the hill, the first being
Margaret Louisa Woods in the 1880s. She was followed by
Robert Bridges and
John Masefield, successive
Poets Laureate. For a couple of years after the First World War, they were joined by three of the war poets:
Robert Graves - Masefield's tenant - and
Edmund Blunden, both future Oxford Professors of Poetry (as Arnold had been) and (for a few months)
Robert Nichols. Bridges' wife
Monica Bridges lived there until 1943, when it was hit by a bomb, their daughter, the poet
Elizabeth Daryush, continued to live after it was repaired on the hill until her death in 1977. Robert Bridges lived at Chilswell House, which was purchased circa 1963 by the
Carmelite order for use as a priory and retreat.
Other notable residents , designed by Sir
Arthur Evans. . , features of Evans’s landscape design on Boars Hill. The hill was also the home of
Gilbert Murray, famous for his verse translations of classical Greek drama, and later the classicist
Leighton Durham Reynolds, Emeritus Professor of Classical Languages and Literature, until his death in 1999. Other notable residents were the sculptor
Oscar Nemon who fled from Nazi rule in Vienna in 1938, and the archaeologist
Sir Arthur Evans who lived on Boars Hill from 1894 until his death in 1941. His house,
Youlbury, notable for its Minoan decoration, was bought after his death by his next-door-neighbour
Arthur Lehman Goodhart, who later demolished it. Goodhart's son
William Goodhart, Baron Goodhart built a modern house on its site, preserving the Victorian gardens. (Those of Margaret Woods, Robert Bridges and Gilbert Murray burnt down.)
Herbert Edward Douglas Blakiston, for many years President of
Trinity College, Oxford, and Vice-Chancellor of the
University of Oxford, lived in Boar's Hill from his retirement in 1938 until his death in 1942, after he was struck by a car while walking in Boar's Hill. The political scientist and public servant
W. G. S. Adams lived there, at a house called Powder Hill, and entertained
Horace Plunkett,
Sir William Beveridge,
Gilbert Murray,
John Masefield and
Robert Bridges. The husband and wife historians
Hugh Trevor Lambrick and
Gabrielle Lambrick lived here. The composer
Lennox Berkeley was born in Sunningwell Plains, Boar’s Hill, in 1903. The historian
Basil Joseph Mathews (1879–1951) lived at Triangle Cottage.
Catherine Octavia Stevens, astronomer, built a house and observatory on Boars Hill in 1910 and she lived there until 1956.
Frederick Keeble and his wife, the noted actress
Lillah McCarthy built a house, Hammels, from old timbers and lived there in the 1920s.
The Carritt family During the 1930s, Boars Hill was home to an infamous family of left-wing revolutionaries and intellectuals known as the
Carritt family, notable for their deep involvement in anti-fascist activism, activism within the
Communist Party of Great Britain, and academic achievements within
Oxford University. Famous members of the Carritt family who lived in Boars Hill include: •
Liesel Carritt: A German-Jewish refugee and communist revolutionary who fled Nazi Germany to Oxford with her family. She married into the Carritt family and later fought in the
Spanish Civil War. •
Michael Carritt: An Oxford University professor and communist spy who infiltrated the British civil service to pass on intelligence to Indian pro-independence activists. •
Anthony Carritt: An anti-fascist revolutionary and the son of zoologist
Arthur Dukinfield Darbishire. He was killed by fascist forces during the Spanish Civil War. •
Edgar Frederick Carritt: English philosopher and Oxford University professor at
University College. •
Noel Carritt: Communist, aviation engineer, and anti-fascist revolutionary who fought against fascism during the Spanish Civil War. •
Bill Carritt: British communist activist, politician, humanitarian aid worker, and foreign editor for the
Daily Worker. The Carritt family's home in Boars Hill became famous as a hub for left-wing intellectual debate, attracting a wide number of people including communist trade union leader
Abraham Lazarus, multiple labour politicians including
Dick Crossman, the novelist
Iris Murdoch,
[1] and numerous poets including
WH Auden[2] and
Stephen Spender.
[3] The Carritt family were also friends with another family of left-wing activists which lived close to them called the Thompsons, whose famous members included the historian
E. P. Thompson and his brother
Frank Thompson.
[1] The children of both families attended
Dragon School together.
[4] == Sites ==