ST CROSS CHURCH & CEMETRY
Directions
Continue a short distance along Mansfield Road, then turn right into Jowett Walk. At the end, look ahead and slightly left: there stands St Cross Church, beside its quiet cemetery.
Orientation cue: The church’s small tower rises behind an iron gate marked St Cross Church and Balliol Archive Centre.
About
“Proceed to the end of Jowett Walk… There you will see one of Oxford’s forgotten treasures, St. Cross Parish Church. Built on an ancient foundation… Make sure you take time to visit the adjoining St. Cross Cemetery… you can find the resting place of Hugo Dyson, Austin Farrer and Charles Williams… also Kenneth Grahame, author of The Wind in the Willows.”
This 12th-century church, once the parish of Holywell Manor, now houses Balliol College’s Special Collections. The surrounding cemetery is one of Oxford’s most atmospheric places. The graves of Hugo Dyson, Austin Farrer, and Charles Williams — three of Lewis’s close friends and fellow Inklings — make this a quiet memorial to the fellowship that shaped his thinking. Nearby lies Kenneth Grahame, whose whimsical riverbank tales anticipated the moral imagination Lewis cherished.
