I celebrate the 150th anniversary of the first telling of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

In my last post, I pointed out a gargoyle that kind of looks like a cat and told you that some people think it might have inspired the Cheshire Cat from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I think that particular story isn't true, but it is true that Oxford has a very close connection with that book. Lewis Carroll, the author, taught math in Christ Church (do you remember when I showed you pictures of Christ Church's dining hall a few months ago?). One day in 1862, he went on a boat ride in the Thames with the daughters of the dean of Christ Church. One of those girls was Alice Liddell, a 10-year-old who inspired the character of Alice. A few weeks ago, I attended a celebration in Christ Church Meadow to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the first time Lewis Carroll told the story he had invented to entertain little Alice.

Has any of you read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland? It's a very funny book that I think you would enjoy. Lots of strange and wonderful things happen in it – and many of those things were inspired by places around Oxford. If you come here, you can visit a churchyard well that inspired the treacle well in Wonderland. Or you can see the stairs in the back of Christ Church's dining hall which inspired the rabbit hole. Or you can see the inspiration for the "pool of tears" in which Alice nearly drowned after she ate a mushroom and became very small.

There were lots of fun things to do at the 150th anniversary celebration. Here are lots of pictures of the activities in which I participated.

Here I am trying on a hat in the Mad Hatter's hat shop. 

Here I am in front of a statue of Alice.

This is a picture of me with some of the mushrooms that Alice ate in Wonderland.

Here are some children – including one dressed as Alice – playing on a giant chess set. 

I also took a turn playing giant chess.