Oxford

Founded in the eighth century at the confluence of the Thames, locally the Isis, and the Cherwell, and named for the ford where oxen could cross. Robert D’Oyly built Oxford Castle in 1071 to hold the area after the Conquest, and teaching began in the eleventh century, making the University of Oxford the oldest in the English-speaking world. The city has buildings in every style of English architecture since late Anglo-Saxon, which is a claim few places can make. City status came in 1542. Motor manufacturing, publishing and science sit alongside the colleges.