NEW COLLEGE LANE & THE BRIDGE OF SIGHS: OXFORD’S MOST FAMOUS VIEW
Directions
Continue walking along Queen’s Lane as it gently curves beneath a small archway and becomes New College Lane.
A few minutes ahead, you’ll pass under another bridge — the elegant stone walkway connecting two parts of Hertford College.
This is the famous Bridge of Sighs, one of the most photographed landmarks in Oxford.
Stop here for a moment and look to your left. From this vantage point, you’ll see one of the most breathtaking views in England:
the square tower of the Bodleian Library, the domed Radcliffe Camera, and beyond them, the soaring spire of the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin.
Orientation cue: You’re standing on a cobbled street between Hertford and New College; look left down the lane for that “postcard-perfect” Oxford skyline.
About
“Continue along New College Lane until you pass under another bridge which connects two buildings belonging to Hertford College. This bridge is sometimes called ‘the Bridge of Sighs.’ Stop here and look to your left and you will see what is perhaps the most impressive architectural view in all England: the square tower of the Bodleian Library, the round dome of the Radcliffe Camera and, beyond that, the soaring spire of the University Church. Begin to walk past these buildings.”
The Bridge of Sighs (completed in 1914) connects two sections of Hertford College over New College Lane. Its nickname is borrowed from the original in Venice, though this Oxford version carries no tragedy — only beauty.
Lewis often crossed or passed beneath this bridge on his way between colleges. He admired Oxford’s ability to hold contrasts: medieval cloisters beside modern stone, private thought beside public splendour.
This was the kind of scene that later inspired his descriptions of Narnia’s lamp-lit worlds — beauty wrapped in melancholy and wonder.
Standing here, you can almost feel the continuity of centuries: scholars hurrying to lectures, tourists snapping photos, and — in another time — Lewis himself, lost in thought, perhaps formulating one of his essays on beauty or truth.
Oxford’s skyline, seen from this point, has been called “a city with her head among the spires and her feet in the river.” Lewis loved that phrase; it captured, he said, “the idea of heaven brushing earth.”
