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Bar Review: Christ Church

Hidden in a less than ideal location vaguely near the dining hall, the newly-opened Undercroft (also apparently known as the “Undie” or “Chundercroft” depending on which type of Christ Church student you are stuck in a  conversation with) is normally not accessible to non-college members, but the door was fortuitously propped open in semi-realistic hopes of attracting formalguests and rugby lads. As anticipated, the biggest deterrent was not Christ Church’s normally excessive security, but a combination of the bar’s quickly-garnered dismal reputation and the really quite dangerous cobblestones one must overcome to reach it.

I would have been concerned for the safety of its high-heeled patrons, had the bar ended up with more than six women in it at any given time during my visit. After finally entering, one finds the interior quite incongruous with the beautiful, traditional, elegant architecture of Tom Quad. The combination of arched stone ceilings, light wood furniture, and painted white walls was perhaps supposed to have a bright, Mediterranean feel, or at least a converted-church vibe similar to that of The Vaults & Garden Café on Radcliffe Square, but this looked tacky and mismatched without the presence of actual sunlight, an inevitable consequence of pub business hours and the cheaply frosted glass on the few, sparse windows. It took at least half an hour for me to remember that I wasn’t in a basement (or the Gladstone Link), an illusion only encouraged by the sickly green ultraviolet lights. Instead of adding a sense of history and grandeur, the ceilings thus only ruined the acoustics, echoing the sound of the badly placed speakers and flatscreens. Bizarrely, the few tables were largely placed directly beneath these TVs, so instead of being able to watch the very loud rugby, their occupants were forced to have their conversations interrupted by thenoise instead.

The unfriendly, humourless barman was unaware whether Christ Church had a college drink, but served me a gin and tonic. The toilet door was marked by three circles with different symbolic markers, from left to right, 80s bow-wearing Madonna lookalikes, people in wheelchairs, and then the one per cent in bow tie. Once inside, it seemed there were only disabled facilities for women (however, it must be said that the combination of stairs and cobblestones makes the bar not particularly wheelchair-accessible in itself).

As this bar lacks any redeeming quality, it may be worth instead going to Christ Church’s unofficial college bar, House, when trying to bag yourself a lover of the landed gentry classes.

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