The man who saved Oxford University

The Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford is an astonishing building, designed by Christopher Wren. Its painted ceiling has just been restored, so that the darkish miasma that was Robert Streeter’s original allegory of truth and light striking the university, is now bright with playful cherubs and lustrous clouds. Here, bookended by large chunks of Latin, a new vice chancellor is to be admitted to the job. He is Andrew David Hamilton, his name Latinised for the ceremony into Andreas. He is not an Oxford man, having arrived here by way of Exeter, Cambridge and Princeton, where he was Provost. Later you could tell that he was not an Oxford man: he pronounced ‘Cherwell’, in his amusing and rather post-prandial speech, as ‘Churwell’.

Waiting for the procession to enter and looking at the ceiling, this sub-Michelangelo heavenly frolic, I wonder just how much it has cost to restore. This may be a university, but it is also a place stuffed with priceless treasures in astonishing buildings and all these have to be maintained.