Reverend Jack Russell and a dog called Trump at Exeter College and Marston, Oxford, 12th July 2024

Jack Russell was an undergraduate and keen hunter at Exeter College. One day, he saw a local milkman with a dog that looked ideal for hunting foxes, perhaps because, being white, it could easily be distinguished from a fox's brown. He bought the dog, called Trump; and so began Jack Russell terriers. Or so the stories say.

I commemorate this by starting at Exeter and walking to Marston, one of two villages where it's said the milkman might have lived. (The other is Elsfield nearby.) This was long before the bridge was built at Marston Ferry Road, and Marston was cut off from North Oxford by the Cherwell. So if Russell had walked to Marston, how could he have got there? One way might have been to cross Magdalen Bridge, which was already there, then go north. So I do that, walking up the Marston Road to Cherwell Drive, then left to Marston. On the way, I point out the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, an unusual fusion of Islamic and college-quadrangle architecture. It becomes very clear that the Centre divides the world into people who may enter and people who may not, and that ✺we✺ may not.

In Marston, I note some landmarks, including the church and the Victoria Arms, then walk to a final monument to Jack Russell, the Jack Russell pub in Salford Road in the New Marston estate. It was demolished recently and replaced by flats, but at least I can show where it was.