It’s summer time, and the living is easy, especially when most of the Oxford summer is spent on the croquet lawns. Though the sport itself is relaxed, the rivalry between colleges for the greatest, most manicured, most pristine croquet lawns is fierce. To resolve, once and for all, the most heated source of competition between colleges, I present to you the top eight places to play croquet in Oxford.
Straight in at number one are the Trinity Lawns, which, and there’s no two ways round this, are spectacular. If you are able to break in through the vaunted blue gates from Broad Street in order to bask on the lawns for an afternoon of croquet and Pimm’s, then count yourself lucky. If you haven’t, then make sure it’s at the top of your Oxford bucket list as it is truly the place to play.
A close second is Oriel Third Quad. Perhaps the most enclosed croquet quad in Oxford, its urban atmosphere undoubtedly adds to the pace of the game. Midday crowds are normally in the double figures so there’s no room for error. A tree and manhole cover ensure only the best can win.
Next up is Queen’s Front Quad. Tucked away behind the huge queues at the Queen’s Lane bus stop, is – surprise, surprise – Queen’s, one of Oxford’s stealth High Street croquet havens. If you are lucky enough to be at Queen’s, or if you have friends that are, then you will certainly know that once you disappear into their Front Quad, the surroundings are stunning. On a sunny afternoon, when the sun hits the Quad’s huge arches, which are so sexy that they would give the Romans college envy, there is nothing better to do than knock some plastic balls through some metal hoops.
For a more bucolic take on croqueting, Merton has you covered. Nestled between the green and pleasant lands of Merton Field and the not-so-satanic cobbles of Merton Street, one finds the battlefield that is Merton’s croquet lawn, sited on the appropriately named Mob Quad. Here, the perfectly manicured lawn masks the emotional scars and wounds suffered in the fierce revision-break matches over the centuries. Luckily for Mertonians, their library is a mere five metres from this modern day Colosseum, which makes tactical and theoretical croquet-based mid-match research most convenient. This training ground has seen the likes of James Flannery – Croquet Cuppers King himself – refine their talents on its grassy verges. Those pitted against any Merton team in the next stage of Cuppers… be prepared.
It should come as no surprise that St John’s makes the cut, given they have so much money they have no idea what do with it. Luckily for you, the croquet-mad public, word has it that they have invested a serious amount of £££ in creating a state-of-the-art croquet facility within the walls of college. Also, I have it on good authority that they’ve installed under-soil heating to ensure that Johnians have the Cuppers advantage of year-round croquet. Watch out world: they mean business.
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From one kind of excess to another, in at six is Christ Church. We get it, Christ Church, your college is pretty cool, and your meadow isn’t half bad either. Their croquet lawn is, as you might expect, pretty fantastic too. So if you get drawn against a Christ Church four in the final rounds of Cuppers, you ought make the most of it by, at the very least, recreating the notorious Bullingdon Club photo – let’s be honest, you needed a new cover photo anyway.
For the more danger-inclined, our penultimate croquet lawn of choice is the Gladstone Link. I may have lied about the low-stakes croquet before: nothing screams high stakes like avoiding an army of angry finalists and librarians as you set up a unique hybrid of crazy golf and croquet in order to harness the true purpose of the Gladstone Link’s moving bookshelves. Mr Gladstone himself would certainly have approved.
And rounding off the list is Worcester. Because Emma Watson played croquet there. Probably.
