THE BODLEIAN LIBRARY & RADCLIFFE CAMERA: STUDY AND THEOLOGY
Directions
From New College Lane, continue walking toward the open square ahead.
You’ll emerge into Radcliffe Square, surrounded by some of Oxford’s most magnificent buildings:
On your right, the domed Radcliffe Camera
Straight ahead, the Bodleian Library with its tall tower and carved archway
Beyond that, the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin with its spire reaching toward the sky
Take time to walk around the square; Lewis would have crossed it hundreds of times between lectures and reading sessions.
Orientation cue: The Radcliffe Camera is the circular stone building at the centre of the square — the Bodleian Library’s theology reading room.
About
“To your right is the famous Bodleian Library (the main library of Oxford University) where Lewis spent many hours reading and studying. The Radcliffe Camera is part of the Bodleian and contains mostly books on theology and English.
The University Church of St. Mary the Virgin (you’ll find the best view of Oxford from its tower!) is where Lewis delivered his famous war-time sermon, ‘The Weight of Glory.’”
Founded in 1602, the Bodleian Library is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, housing over 13 million printed items.
Lewis was a frequent visitor here — particularly to the Radcliffe Camera, the elegant domed reading room that contains many of the theology and literature collections central to his work.
The quiet, book-lined chambers were where he prepared lectures, wrote essays, and refined ideas that would later become The Allegory of Love, The Screwtape Letters, and Mere Christianity.
Lewis viewed study as a spiritual discipline. He once wrote, “The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts.” The Bodleian was where he did that irrigating — both for his students and for himself.
Even during the air raids of the Second World War, he continued to lecture and write, often retreating to these very rooms for peace. To Lewis, reading was not escapism, but “a means of entering fully into reality.”
Today, the Bodleian and Radcliffe Camera remain open to students and scholars, and their quiet majesty captures perfectly the Oxford balance of reason, reverence, and imagination.
