C.S.Lewis and Oxford

Oxford is well known due to its University. Actually, it is the oldest University in the English-speaking world.

I enjoyed visiting this amazing city because I had a great opportunity to go to many places that are related to C.S.Lewis.

Clive Staples Lewis was born on November 29, 1898, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In 1908, his mother Flora Lewis died from cancer, which contributed to Lewis' early atheism.

It was his Magdalen College rooms that Lewis converted, very reluctantly, from long-held atheism to a belief in God. In 1929, Lewis knelt down to pray for the first time since he was a child. Lewis was not yet a Christian; only a theist.

In the 1940s and 50s, C.S. Lewis was a member of a small group of like-minded friends called "The Inklings." They met the Eagle and Child Pub on St. Giles Street in Oxford to discuss literature, writing, religion and life.

Another prominent member of the Inklings was Lewis' Catholic friend J.R.R. Tolkien; discussions at this pub contributed to the final form of both Lewis' Narnia books and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series.

The Kilns was the name of C.S. Lewis' home from 1929 to 1963. It is now on a cul-de-sac called Lewis Close, but in his time it was all by itself in the middle of eight wooded acres. It is located in the village of Risinghurst, which is now an eastern suburb of Oxford (postcode OX3 8JD).

Lewis lived at the Kilns with his brother Warnie, an older woman named Mrs. Moore (the mother of Paddy, Lewis' college roommate that had died in World War I), and Mrs. Moore's daughter Maureen. Later, long after Mrs. Moore's death, Lewis' wife Joy moved in with them for the last few years of her life (and as seen in the movie Shadowlands).

It was here at the Kilns that Lewis wrote all the Narnia books and his other classics. The house plays a significant role in the stories as well. In real life, a few children who were evacuated from London during the WWII bombing came to stay at the Kilns.

C.S. Lewis attended services at Holy Trinity Church in Headington Quarry with his brother Warnie for 31 years, from 1932 until his death in 1963. The Anglican parish church was built in 1849.

The grave of C.S. Lewis is in the churchyard of Holy Trinity. The epitaph was written by his brother Warnie, who then was buried with him a few years later.

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