A walk to the Tolkien Bench

I have been watching The Lord of the Rings for as long as I can remember.

- NIGHT OWL ANNA MAE YU LAMENTILLO

Long before I knew what a university was, long before I imagined myself leaving home, I knew Middle-earth.It was the landscape of my childhood imagination—misty mountains, ancient forests, and the quiet courage of ordinary people thrust into extraordinary journeys. Maybe that is why, when I arrived in Oxford for the first time as a student, the place I most wanted to visit wasn’t my college, or the Bodleian Library, or even the Radcliffe Camera. It was a bench in University Parks—the J.R.R. Tolkien Bench—tucked near High Bridge.

To get there, I walk a route that has quickly become ritual. From the bustle of Broad Street, I pass Balliol College—its sturdy walls and serene quad giving the type of gravitas that only a place founded in the 13th century can hold.