This morning I woke up, ate an early English breakfast (which was awesome - more on that in a later post), posted the previous post that I was too jetlagged to post last night, and then walked over to Christ Church's main gate to meet Andrew at 11:00am. He and I found a little shop and got a slice of pizza and sat and talked for awhile, and then, around noon, caught the bus to Kilns Lane and Lewis Close, which is where you can find C.S. Lewis' house, the Kilns.

We had to wander around in this residential area a little while before we found the Kilns. It's a beautiful little house, lovingly restored (probably in much better shape than when C.S. Lewis actually lived there). We were a little bit early so we hung around in a nearby lane leading to the C.S. Lewis nature walk and pond. When our 1:00pm tour time approached we went to the door of the Kilns and rang the bell.

A matronly English woman answered the door, and when she found out that we were there for a tour, she asked us if we wouldn't mind waiting for a few minutes in the garden. So, Andrew and I took our seats in the garden that C.S. Lewis used to sit in. It is - I have to resort to a more British-sounding adjective here - lovely.

A few minutes after we sat down, a very nice lady popped out of the door of the Kilns and asked us if we'd like some tea.

Tea.

Would I like to have some tea . . . in C.S. Lewis's garden . . .

I avoided the temptation to shout "WOULD I? WOULD I?!?!" - and instead said something like "Thank you. That would be splendid." I actually don't think I said "splendid", I probably said something more American like "awesome", or "neat", but let's pretend.

She and another very nice "scullery maid" (that's how they laughingly referred to themselves) brought us tea on a very nice serving, with sugar lumps, cream, and cookies. I took a picture of it, above.

The aforementioned two ladies are Americans, by the way. Interesting.

Another group of five people joined us a few minutes later and tea was brought out for them as well. And then we entered the Kilns. We sat in the sitting room and listened as our guide, Kim Gilnett, told us the story of the Kilns and C.S. Lewis. He did a fantastic job. Andrew had already done this tour and confirmed for me that it's not a scripted thing. Kim is a Lewis aficionado from Seattle Pacific University (he's also an American) and he asked us about our interest in Lewis, shared anecdotes, pointed out photos, talked about Lewis' wife, Joy, and in general kept us spellbound for nearly an hour. Among the anecdotes shared were ones about Lewis's generosity: Lewis didn't feel right making money from writing about Christianity, so he gave a lot of his money away - always to needy individuals, rather than causes. And always anonymously. This helps explain why he, Warnie, Mrs. Moore, other boarders, his gardner, Mr. Paxford, their cook, and later Joy Davidman and her two sons, continued to live at this relatively small house that Lewis had bought in 1930 for $3,300 pounds, till Lewis' death and beyond.

As an aside, Kim is not a big fan of the dour portrayal of Lewis in the movie Shadowlands.

Following our time in the sitting room, Kim took us on a tour of the house, including the dining room, the kitchen, several of the studies that are in the house, one containing Warnie Lewis' typewriter upon which a large number of Lewis' letters were typed up from "Jack's" manuscripts, etc. We saw the room C.S. Lewis died in, the kitchen, and a number of bedrooms. It's not a large house by any means, but it holds a deceptively large number of rooms. We also met Jerry Root, editor of The Quotable Lewis, who was studying his Bible at the desk where Lewis often wrote during the time when he authored the Narnia series. Professor Root was preparing for a weekend seminar, where students come and are put up at the Kilns for several days to learn more about Lewis.

Our guide, Kim, has been a Lewis scholar since the 70s, and was a part of the restoration of the Kilns that started in the early 90s. There's a story there: After Lewis' brother Warnie Lewis, who also lived at the Kilns, died in the early 70s, the home was sold to a family that proceeded to change a bunch of things, even to the point of renovating the kitchen in the 1970s Avacado Green Blech™ style, so the restoration team had its work cut out for them. In addition, C.S. Lewis and Warnie pretty much smoked non-stop in the house during their waking hours, so there was quite a bit of heavy tobacco stainage that was discovered when the restoration team stripped the newer paint off. All in all I think they've done a fantastic job. The people who run the Kilns seem to have a genuine love and enthusiasm for Lewis and it shows.

I don't think I'll ever forget taking afternoon tea in the Kilns garden.

Once we left the Kilns we walked around the Kilns' pond, and then walked over to the church that C.S. Lewis attended where we viewed his gravestone, which is in the church cemetery.

Following this, we headed back to Oxford's city center and Andrew took me on an abbreviated Inklings walk. It was great - we walked by the first house C.S. Lewis stayed at after arriving in Oxford, visited the gravestones of a few of his Inkling friends such as Hugo Dyson and Charles Williams, walked past Magdalen college, and ended up at the Eagle and Child pub for dinner. It got me wondering what a "Thinklings walk" would look like. We'd start at BloDingle, probably, which was the site of our first few moots, and go from there, ending up, I suppose, in a quaint little town in Vermont . . .

But I digress: at the Eagle and Child we ordered some delicious "pie" (think pot-pie, not fruit-pie) and then I caught the bus back to Headington.

It was a great day. Tomorrow, London!

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