St Michael at the North Gate

As you walk around the city of Oxford there are two small Norman towers that are hard to miss - Carfax Tower and this one, known as St Michael at the North Gate, which sits on the corner of Ship Street and Cornmarket.  (Why there is a Ship Street in Oxford is a tad perplexing, as Oxford is about as far from the sea as you can get in England.  According to Wikipedia, the original name was Dewy's Lane and the current name may be a corruption of Sheep, as there was a sheep market in the street in the 18th Century.  I saw no sheep last week, I should perhaps add). This tower is, apparently, Oxford's oldest building, dating to 1040.  I have to admire the town planners over the centuries that have let this little tower be - here in Coleraine the planners seem determined to strip away any sense of history we ever had.  About the only thing they do well, some might say.  

Anyway, here she is as was snapped up on a bright sunny spring day almost a thousand years after construction, using an almost-as-old Olympus OM4ti and 24mm Zuiko lens:

The Tower of St Michael at the North Gate, as it looked last Wednesday. On HP5+, in HC-110 printed on MG Classic gloss paper.