Oxford's University Church of St Mary the Virgin reopens

Oxford's 13th Century University Church of St Mary the Virgin has reopened following a £5.5m restoration.

The medieval building - which boasts Oxford's tallest spire - has undergone its biggest renovation since the late 19th Century in a two-year project.

Works included cleaning stonework, restoring the Clore Old Library, chancel and nave including 15th Century stalls, and improving access.

The church, which attracts 300,000 annual visitors, reopened earlier.

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Marmalade for the students?

Recent excavations at Harris Manchester College, Oxford, produced a number of cylindrical marmalade jars, recovered with other debris from a feature interpreted as a store-room. Three jars were kept as a sample. All bear the mark of the Keiller marmalade company of Dundee. 

The origins of Keiller’s marmalade are supposed to lie, possibly apocryphally, in a shipment of over-ripe Seville oranges bought by James Keiller and used by his wife, Janet, to make marmalade. The brand was founded in 1797, as the first commercial marmalade brand, and its defining characteristic from the beginning was the characteristic scraps of rind in the preserve. By the late 19th century it was being exported around the world.

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N.B. Students on the Oxford Experience get Cooper's Oxford Marmalade!