Continue to your right past the famed Ashmolean Museum, down the wide, tree-lined road called St. Giles (so named after St. Giles’s Church at the far end). On your left you will come to the most famous Lewis pub, The Eagle and Child (also known as ‘The Bird and Baby’). It was here that the Inklings met informally every Tuesday morning to drink and to discuss the books they were reading (and writing). In 1962, after a remodeling of the Bird and Baby (one of many), they moved across the street to The Lamb and Flag.

From Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet:
‘[Ransom, after arriving back on earth,] contrived to get into a lane, then a road, then into a village street. A lighted door was open. There were voices from within and they were speaking English. There was a familiar smell. He pushed his way in, regardless of the surprise he was creating in the bar. “A pint of bitter, please,” said Ransom.’”

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The Eagle and Child, dating back to the 17th century, is one of Oxford’s most famous literary landmarks.
From the early 1930s through the 1950s, it served as the informal headquarters of The Inklings — the group of writers that included C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Warren Lewis, and others.
They met here every Tuesday morning in the “Rabbit Room” — a snug, wood-panelled space at the back of the pub — to read drafts of their works and exchange both encouragement and brutally honest critique.
It was in this room that chapters of The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Screwtape Letters were first read aloud.
The group’s friendship was grounded in mutual respect and humour as much as shared faith. Lewis once described their meetings as “a roaring cataract of nonsense” — but also as one of the greatest blessings of his life.
Though the pub was remodelled in 1962, the atmosphere remains remarkably unchanged: dark wood, old prints, and a feeling that somewhere, behind the laughter, great ideas are still being born.

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