exam closures Oxford and Cambridge
 

I'm going to be in London for six days next June. It will be my second trip to London so I'm planning on taking some day trips. I am very interested in going to Oxford and/or Cambridge. If I'm in London June 8-14, will I hit exam time? What exactly will be closed? Thanks for your help.

Possibly. Oxbridge exams take place up to the end of June, though most (for undergraduates) are from late May to early June. While colleges won't be entirely closed to visitors, just watch out for any restrictions posted and keep the noise down.

The exam schools will be off limits and many parts of colleges (depending on dates) where students live will be off limits but the majority of areas you will want to see will be open

Closing "attractions" is really only a Cambridge thing. Virtually all of King's, for example, is closed to visitors throughout their summer term (though the chapel stays accessible most of the time).

There's no such blanket exam-related closure of anything visitors routinely go to at Oxford: undoubtedly a commentary on the relative importance the two universities give to exams. A couple of smaller colleges near Christ Church have recently reacted to the pressure of overspill: Pembroke now more or less bans visitors year-round, and Oriel bans them during the summer term.

But otherwise, closures - always of just a building or two - are more of a problem later in June (for a clutch of university ceremonies), most lunchtimes (those dining halls used in films are really there for eating in), and on all sorts of random days through the year when a college or institution happens on a better way of making a few bob.

Those "better ways" are commonest during the summer, so if there's something you particularly want to see, it's always wise - especially in summer - to go round all the relevant institutions' websites (collective homepage: http://www.ox.ac.uk/visitors/visiting-oxford )

I've never found anything seriously affected by such closures - though some film shoots do choose bloody inconvenient places to block off for a couple of days.

Thanks so much everyone