Merton
Merton College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford, founded in the 1260s by Walter de Merton. In the late 13th-century, the college was relocated and consolidated in the south east of Oxford. Construction of Merton's Mob Quad, claimed to be the oldest quadrangle at Oxford, was begun shortly thereafter, influencing much future collegiate architecture. The Mob Quad likely received its name due to the undergraduate population that lived there. The Merton College Library, located on Mob Quad, is the oldest functioning library for academics and students at a university and among the oldest libraries in Europe.
In 1945, J.R.R. Tolkien was made Professor of English Language and Literature, continuing in that role until 1959. During this period, much of The Lord of the Rings was written, and was published in three volumes between 29 July 1954 and 20 October 1955. Additionally, Tolkien published several academic papers and lectures, On Fairy-Stories, Farmer Giles of Ham, and The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhtelm’s Son.
Merton College, a reflection
The picturesque gardens of Merton college, Oxford, will remain one of the favorite places I visited on my travels with the Single Leaf team. The great expanses of green space and the small, quiet nooks that surround the college greens bring a sense of supreme peace and ease.
They remind me of Elrond's house from the Lord of the Rings. The great half-elven's house was a place of learning, rest, and freedom from mortal pain all three. Merton gave off much the same feeling. The college loomed impressive but beautiful behind, a constant reminder of the scholarly prestige of Merton. However, the greens and quiet hollows spoke of rest and relaxation. The fields beyond were an easy spot for the eye to rest and the mind to wander.
The more concrete realizations that Merton brought, however, had to do with the fact that Tolkien worked at Merton for most of his adult life. And that was the environment at which Tolkien was at home. To me, Merton stands as an example of Tolkien's status as a consummate academic, as a large portion of what Tolkien would have considered his professional work happened within Oxford and—in a more specific time period—within the walls of Merton. That work would have involved teaching English and editing the Oxford English Dictionary, and also producing his own translations of ancient epic tales. One could very well wonder how Tolkien managed to balance so many projects! The environment of Merton gives some answer to that, however, as quiet industry fairly seeped out of the place at the time of my visit. I could easily see Tolkien working away in one of the quiet gardens, grading papers on one side of a bench, and dreaming of middle earth on the backs of those papers in a stack on his other side.