Merton Street

Merton Street is a cobbled lane in central Oxford. It leaves the High Street at its north-eastern end — between the Ruskin School of Drawing on one side and the Eastgate Hotel, which sits on the line of the historic east gate of the city, on the other — and then runs east to west, parallel to and just south of the High Street for most of its length. Because the High Street is closed to most through traffic, Merton Street currently carries the A420 designation; westwards it continues into Oriel Square, where Oriel College sits.

The street's character comes from its frontage. Merton College, one of Oxford's older colleges, occupies the south side; to the west of Merton, Corpus Christi College — one of Oxford's smallest — also fronts onto the street. At the very western end, in Oriel Square, is a side entrance to Christ Church. At the eastern end stands the notorious 'Pink House' and an entrance to University College. Magpie Lane and Logic Lane (the latter passing through University College, which backs onto Merton Street) lead off the street to the north.

The real tennis court

Halfway along the street is the Merton Street tennis court — a rare surviving example of an extant real tennis court. Real tennis, the medieval ancestor of lawn tennis, is now played at only a handful of courts in England; the Merton Street court has been in use for centuries and is one of the most discreet pieces of historic sporting infrastructure in the country. The building is private and not open to general visitors, but the back of it is visible from the pavement near the Magpie Lane junction.

Merton Grove

Opposite Magpie Lane, Merton Grove is a narrow gated passage running south between Merton and Corpus Christi. It provides pedestrian access to Christ Church Meadow — useful both for the riverside walk and as a back route between the colleges and the meadow.

A bit of history

Merton Street is older than its name. The east-west section was originally St John Baptist's Street, after the church that became Merton College's chapel. The short section adjoining the High Street was called Coach & Horses Lane, after a public house on the west side. Between the early eighteenth and late nineteenth centuries the adjoining section was renamed King Street, and by 1751 the whole street had taken that name; in 1772 just the east-west part was again called Merton Street, and the entire street only became "Merton Street" in the twentieth century.

The cobbles are visibly cobbled, but the surface has been repaired in places by the city council using asphalt — a small running quarrel between heritage and maintenance that is, for Oxford streets, characteristic.

Notable residents

The poet Siegfried Sassoon briefly took rooms at no 14 during 1919, on the recommendation of Lady Ottoline Morrell. J. R. R. Tolkien had rooms in Merton Street towards the end of his life in the early 1970s — a return to the college (Merton) where he had held the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature chair.

Historical names: Coach & Horses Lane, King Street, St John Baptist's Street

Sources: Wikipedia: Merton Street · Wikidata: Merton Street (Q6820731) · OpenStreetMap: Merton Street, Oxford