The Night Climbers of Oxford is a secret society dedicated to nocturnally scaling college and town buildings in Oxford, England. The society is noted for its political activism, controversial acts, feats of climbing and parkour, as well as urban exploration. The society was likely inspired by their Cambridge counterparts, The Night Climbers of Cambridge. Activities conducted by the society are forbidden by the University authorities, meaning that acts are completed under the cover of darkness, to avoid detection.
The founding date of the Night Climbing society remains unknown, although acts of nocturnal climbing in Oxford are reported to date back to the 1930s, with members of the Alpine Club and Oxford University Mountaineering Club being some of the first to venture on to the University rooftops. The historian and climber David Cox is widely regarded as one of the first night climbers to have scaled the Radcliffe Camera and the Codrington Library, during the early 1930s. Upon his second ascent of the Radcliffe Camera, he was accompanied by fellow climber Nully Kretschmer. [1] As an undergraduate, Cox stole the weather vane from the Christopher Wren sundial in All Souls College. Upon being elected a fellow, he climbed back up and replaced it without its absence being noticed. [2] Tom Tower at Christ Church is also reported to have first been scaled in the 1940s by undergraduate students.
Hamish Nicol, a mountaineer, participated in acts of night climbing. After completing his National Service from 1947–49, when he was commissioned in the Royal Artillery, he attended Balliol College, where he switched from Geology to Medicine. During his studies in Oxford, Nicol placed a white bow tie on top of the Radcliffe Camera to celebrate the Coronation of Elizabeth II. [3] [4]
Despite Oxford hosting similar architecture to that of Cambridge, night-climbing activities remained sporadic throughout the 1960s and 1970s. This was likely because of the combination of Oxford University Mountaineering Club senior members and Presidents discouraging acts of night climbing and the brickwork of Oxford supposedly being renowned for its fragility and softness, making climbs on listed or college buildings dangerous. For these reasons, no formal society dedicated to Night Climbing is thought to have gained any traction or structure during the late 20th century.
Whilst an undergraduate at St Catherine's College from 2005–2008, Katherine Rundell developed an interest in night climbing and began to explore the rooftops, inspired by the 1937 book The Night Climbers of Cambridge according to her diary. Rundell would later publish the book Rooftoppers, which followed the adventures of Sophie, a girl orphaned in a shipwreck on her first birthday. Sophie later attempts to find her mother, who she is convinced survived the disaster, whilst also taking to the rooftops of Paris in order to thwart officials trying to send her to a British orphanage. [5]
The early 21st century has seen an increase in the number of night-climbing activities based in Oxford. From 2016 to 2020, a group of nocturnal climbers began posting images to anonymous confession Facebook pages such as Oxfess, detailing climbs conducted at The Radcliffe Camera, Christ Church, Corpus Christi College, Pembroke College, Westgate, Cornmarket Street, and several other high-profile locations. Each public post contained content of a political or philosophical nature, with advice given sometimes in the form of an 'agony aunt'. The local media dubbed the group "The Night Climbers of Oxford", for their identities remained unknown. Despite some backlash, the public showed support for the group and their controversial acts. As a result, they quickly became part of Oxford's urban and night-life culture. The modern incarnation is thought to be a mixed-gender society, unlike their Cambridge counterparts. It is not exclusive to members of Oxford University and consists of those who are physically talented in sports such as rock climbing and parkour.
During May 2018, traffic cones began to litter the exterior walls of the Radcliffe Camera. The Night Climbers of Oxford claimed responsibility through anonymous Oxfess Facebook submissions. The cones were detailed with humorous content, supposedly designed to put students in a 'light-hearted' frame of mind. During Oxford's pride week the traffic cones were decorated with rainbow flags, showing the secret society's clear support for the movement. Other key political issues that are often pursued by the Night Climbers is that of inequality, elitism, and the homeless epidemic in Oxford. [6]
In April 2017, Merton Street was shut and fire tenders were called after several Corpus Christi College students climbed onto the roof, following a 'Bop'. All but one of the students escaped from the porters, while one had to be rescued by the fire service. Eyewitness reports indicate the students crawled along a first-floor gutter in order to reach the slate roof of the main Quad. It is unclear how the students reached the gutter, but they were quickly spotted by porters and a Junior Dean. Speaking to the Cherwell student newspaper, David Bray, Fire Protection and Business Safety Manager for Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service, released a statement saying: "They had placed themselves at great danger, considering that they were over four storeys above street level, and the slightest slip may have had disastrous consequences, which could have, at best, involved life-changing injuries."
In an email to JCR members, seen by Cherwell, the Dean of Corpus Christi, Dr David Russell, described climbing on college buildings as "extraordinarily dangerous", noting the "seriousness" of the ban on climbing and concluding that the ground was "unforgiving." [7]
In January 2017, Christ Church students were issued with a safety warning after roof alarms were triggered by a night-climbing incident. The Night Climbers of Oxford confirmed to the Cherwell student newspaper that two of their members had scaled Christ Church within the same time frame, coinciding with the incident. Professor Geraldine Johnson, the college's junior censor, warned students to "make sure you don't let anyone use your windows to access either the scaffolding or roof areas of the College." The Night Climbers informed Cherwell that Christ Church was the easiest college to "both climb and infiltrate", because of the many obscure entrances on the grounds. College authorities expressed their concerns, highlighting the dangers of climbing on college buildings, despite not condemning the act of night climbing itself. [8]
In more recent years, guides, books, plays and films have depicted the night-climbing/roof-climbing culture within Oxford. They are as follows:
In 2007, Stephen Massicotte and R. H. Thomson printed the book The Oxford Roof Climber's Rebellion. This book inventively expands on the friendship between T. E. Lawrence and Robert Graves, suffering from the aftermath of World War I and foreseeing the dawning of new ones. This prompts the Oxford Night Climbers to lay siege to the university and town buildings, placing an Arabian flag on a roof at Oxford. The film was later converted into a theatrical production, produced by the Urban Stages company. [9]
In 2014, The Riot Club depicts students scaling the town buildings surrounding the High Street. Directed by Lone Scherfig and written by Laura Wade, the film is set amongst the privileged elite of Oxford University, following the story of Miles (Max Irons) and Alistair (Sam Claflin), two first-year students determined to join the infamous Riot Club. The Riot Club is described as a veiled version of the real-life Bullingdon Club.
Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college includes the Master, the Fellows of the College, and about 450 undergraduate and 250 graduate students. The college was founded by William Byngham in 1437 as God's House. In 1505, the college was granted a new royal charter, was given a substantial endowment by Lady Margaret Beaufort, and changed its name to Christ's College, becoming the twelfth of the Cambridge colleges to be founded in its current form. Alumni of the college include some of Cambridge University's most famous members, including Charles Darwin and John Milton.
The Radcliffe Camera is a building of the University of Oxford, England, designed by James Gibbs in a Baroque style and built in 1737–49 to house the Radcliffe Science Library. It is sited to the south of the Old Bodleian, north of the Church of St Mary the Virgin, and between Brasenose College to the west and All Souls College to the east. The Radcliffe Camera's circularity, its position in the heart of Oxford, and its separation from other buildings make it the focal point of the University of Oxford, and as such it is almost always included in shorthand visual representations of the university. The Radcliffe Camera is not open to the public.
Merton College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, chancellor to Henry III and later to Edward I, first drew up statutes for an independent academic community and established endowments to support it. An important feature of de Merton's foundation was that this "college" was to be self-governing and the endowments were directly vested in the Warden and Fellows.
Buildering describes the act of climbing on the outside of buildings and other artificial structures. The word "buildering", sometimes misspelled bildering, combines the word building with the climbing term bouldering. If done without ropes or protection far off the ground, buildering is extremely dangerous. It is often practiced outside legal bounds, and is thus practiced mostly at night.
The Night Climbers of Cambridge is a book, written under the pseudonym "Whipplesnaith", about nocturnal climbing on the colleges and town buildings of Cambridge, England, in the 1930s. The book remains popular among Cambridge University students and the 1930s and 1950s editions can be hard to find. It is often credited with popularising and inspiring the first generation of urban explorers and night climbers.
Corpus Christi may refer to:
The White's Chair of Moral Philosophy was endowed in 1621 by Thomas White, Canon of Christ Church as the oldest professorial post in philosophy at the University of Oxford.
There are a number of popular legends associated with Cambridge University and its 800 year-old history, often recounted by punt guides to tourists while cruising the River Cam. Some are true, some contain elements of truth, and others are somewhat more fabricated. The myths and legends listed below represent a select few of the traditions and stories associated with Cambridge.
David Malcolm Lewis was an English historian who was Professor of Ancient History at the University of Oxford. He is most renowned for his monumental two-volume edition of the inscriptions of Archaic and Classical Athens and Attica. His breadth and depth of knowledge was so widely admired that for decades he was invited by other scholars to comment upon and improve a high proportion of all book manuscripts in the field of Greek history before they went to publication.
Ivo James Benedict Stourton is a British author and solicitor.
Gail Trimble is a British academic specialising in Latin poetry and literary form. She was captain of the Corpus Christi College team for the BBC television programme University Challenge in 2009 and scored a high proportion of the team's points. While her team won the challenge, they were subsequently disqualified after it was found that one of her teammates had finished his studies while the show was being recorded. Trimble has continued to appear on quiz programmes. She is now a fellow and tutor in Classics at Trinity College, Oxford.
The Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA) is a student Conservative association founded in 1924, whose members are drawn from the University of Oxford. Since October 2009, OUCA has been affiliated with Conservative Future and its successor, the Young Conservatives, the Conservative Party youth wing.
Night climbing is a term used, principally at the Oxford and Cambridge universities in England, to describe the sport of climbing up the walls of colleges and public buildings, and exploring the rooftops. This activity is frowned on by college authorities, so it is mainly done under cover of darkness, to avoid detection.
Rooftopping, sometimes called roofing, refers to the unsecured ascent of rooftops, cranes, antennas, bell towers, smokestacks, or other tall structures, usually illegally. Rooftoppers usually take photos or videos of their climbs.
John Copcot, DD was an English cleric and academic, becoming Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge and Master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
Katherine Rundell is an English author and academic. She is the author of Impossible Creatures, named Waterstones Book of the Year for 2023. She is also the author of Rooftoppers, which in 2015 won both the overall Waterstones Children's Book Prize and the Blue Peter Book Award for Best Story, and was short-listed for the Carnegie Medal. She is a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford and has appeared as an expert guest on BBC Radio 4 programmes including Start the Week, Poetry Please, Seriously.... and Private Passions.
Corpus Christi College Boat Club (Oxford) (CCCBC) is a rowing club for members of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. It is based on the Isis at Boathouse Island, Christ Church Meadow, Oxford, Oxford.