#Lady Oxford

[j-august]

Antonia Fraser, Lady Caroline Lamb

[opens-up-4-nobody]

This one goes out to those who accused me of stealing her big naturals here

[cutestkilla]

Tea for (more than) Two

So, in a delightful turn of events, I recently got together with some pals who are also TOTALLY NORMAL about Carry On. And we did our best to replicate afternoon tea at Lady Ruth’s house. And I thought it would be kinda fun to share the results (and some recipes, which are at the end under the cut). So, here they are, featuring:

Scones! (Sour cherry, ofc.)

Cake! (Chocolate with Chocolate-Orange Buttercream featuring a super respectful remembrance, Lemon Drizzle, and Classic Victoria Sandwich.)

Lavender Earl Grey shortbread cookies!

Finger sandwiches! (Egg & cress, Lemon and prawn, Caprese on focaccia, and Coronation chicken - all on freshly baked bread.)

A selection of teas! (Including Simon's Sour Cherry looseleaf blend, Simon Snow Tea, some proper English Breakfast, and of course Earl Grey.)

A giant slab of butter! (Fancy butter.)

A basil plant!

A crucible!

A sword through the table!

Special cameos by a Watford goat (wings hidden) and Prof. Minos (tiny fluffy edition)!

Sadly, no tea trolley, but we did our best to provide glamorous staging anyway.

It was pretty much the best, guys! Highly recommend. Recipes (including dairy-free versions for many treats) below the cut.

Chocolate cake with chocolate-orange buttercream (dairy-free)

Using this recipe for the cake, and this one for the frosting (instructions at the end for a chocolate variant). A hot tip is to use egg whites instead of aquafaba (they whip up much faster) and of course to add orange zest, per AWTWB ch 89.

Lemon Drizzle Cake (dairy-free)

Using this recipe, using vegan butter and replacing the self-raising flour with some flour/baking powder/salt ratio from the internet. Garnish with Kellogg's ICEE Cereal or any other weird cereal you saw at the store and couldn't resist trying, for a little visual flair.

Classic Victoria Sandwich (dairy-free)

Using this recipe, substituting butter with vegan butter, milk with a non-dairy milk alternative (ideally soy but in this case oat milk was used), and replacing the self-raising flour with the same flour/baking powder/salt ratio from the internet as above. Regular old granulated sugar can be used in place of caster sugar. Garnished this with some black raspberries, but any attractive fruit (or weird cereal) could be used.

Sour Cherry Scones

This recipe from the Joy of Cooking does the trick! Use the GOOD butter.

Lavender Earl Grey Shortbread Cookies

You can find the recipe here

Overnight Focaccia Bread

Lemon and Prawn Sandwiches

This recipe came from @cookingmywaythroughcarryon and there are tons more there for tea party inspiration, including alternate versions of some of the above, so definitely check it out!

[historicalreusedcostumes]

This Golden costume with flowers on is worn on Jamie Campbell Bower as Young Earl Of Oxford in Anonymous (2011) and worn again on extra as a courtier in Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) and later worn on an ekstra in My Lady Jane Season 1 Episode 5 (2024)

[coachbeards]

Beard is Bi!! We love that!!

beard is absolutely bisexual <333 I think they were so close to saying it several times but wanted to keep that part of his mystery (I am delusional)

[enchanted-lightning-aes]

Lady Anne and Finn Oxford reading each other for filth was one of the iconic parts of Rock 'N Royals. Their calls involving high petty energy was just soooo fun. 😂

[cobwebs-in-sues-closet]

the pebbles pushing in the silver streams,/the rushes talking in their dreams,

[laomelettedufromage]

Being the youngest by a couple decades in a group of old people who adore you is so much fun. They think I’m soooooo cool :P

[afrozenbee]

it is time

This year for Halloween I will either be going as the Oxford comma or a crazy cat lady

[gawrkin]

Every time I hear about the Seven Liberal Arts, it's always in conjuction with Magic

(Samples taken from Vulgate Cycle and Post-Vulgate Cycle)

The Lady of the Lake

Petronius and the University of Oxford

Hippomene's daughter, Mother of the Questing Beast

Anyone else notice the "seven arts" mentioned in other stories?

[corallapis]

But the place of all others for romance and gathering rosebuds and making hay and jumping over the moon was Sutton Courtenay. This lovely sixteenth-century manor house belonged to my Uncle Harry Lindsay and Aunt Norah. There once a year I was allowed to go before I came out. The garden was famous for its imagination and fertility. Flowers literally overflowed everything and drifted off into a wilderness. The house was furnished impeccably ‘of the date’ and lit by acetylene gas that simulated candles to perfection. We ate under a loggia from great bowls of chicken in rice and kedgeree and mushrooms and raspberries and Devonshire cream and gooseberry fool and figs — all in abundance. I would arrive carrying a letter from my mother entrusting me to Aunt Norah’s great care — not too late to bed and above all not to be alone with young men. The chief object of the visit, as I knew and as Aunt Norah knew, was to drift in a boat all day long with one of the Oxford heroes through the reeds and inlets of the Thames which flowed by the garden — a dinghy full of poetry books and sweets and parasols and bathing-dresses — and better still (or worse!) in the moonlight with the best loved. So the letter was ignored by my aunt, who was younger much than my mother and did not mind anyway if I came to no good. I loved her very dearly and miss her today. She dressed mostly in tinsel and leopard-skins and baroque pearls and emeralds, and her exquisite hands could play the piano with skill and feeling. She had what was called Gepäck — favourite poems and pieces cut shamelessly out of books and stuck into another, and she taught me to appreciate a lot that was new, as I was apt to stick in my own mud. Sutton was quite near to Oxford (my Mecca), so these yearly visits were schemed over and anticipated with ecstasy by me and by the undergraduates I so loved. Uncle Harry had bathing-dresses for twenty of them, and four dozen tennis-balls where other players used six. Never was there such generosity, for the Lindsays had no money and for this reason Sutton did not survive. The moment came when there was not enough money to control the flowers, which rose and submerged the house.

— Lady Diana Cooper, The Rainbow Comes and Goes

[equimour]

⠀

⠀ Can't you see that you're a love of mine?⠀

⠀⠀⠀

[blackwldcw]

@headlessbutnothopeless asked: ♚ ((Mentioned it in DMs, but I really like the short drabbles of RP events - do you write/post fanfiction at all?))

{Hey! Thank you for sending one of these in <3 I very much enjoy your blog, too, based on what I’ve seen.

And I used to. Unfortunately, not anymore. I’ve been working on a novel unaffiliated with any fandom in my free time, as well as this blog.}

[cass1x1]

what's your favorite book of this year?

that is SUCH A good question omg!!!! the book i rated highest this year so far on my reading app is a tie between Nona the Ninth and A Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics. on the other hand, i didn't rate The Professor and the Madman as highly as either of those two, but it's definitely been the one i've wanted to talk to other people about the most???? it was just such an odd book.

[marzipanandminutiae]

quotes by Victorians about the 1920s view of their generation's women

"We are frequently told that the Victorian woman...generally behaved like a pampered and neurotic infant. This is all moonshine. I do not think that I ever saw a woman faint before I came to London in 1869, and not often after then...they enjoyed a hearty laugh, and a good many of them a contest of wits with any man." -Nineteenth Century, a Monthly Review, 1927 (written by a man born in 1850)

"What queer ideas the girl of 1929 has about the Victorian period- they are not a bit true...Marriage was by no means the end and aim of our existence. Oxford and Cambridge claimed quite a few of us after school days were over. We had great ideas about 'life' and what it all might mean to us." -St. Petersburg Times, 1929 (written by a woman born in 1853)

"True, debutantes were chaperoned at balls. But that fact did not prevent them from dancing as frequently as they chose with their favorite partners. The idea that girls in the Victorian era spent their days sewing seams and practicing scales is another fallacy." -Gettysburg Times, July 1, 1927 (quote from the Dowager Lady Raglan, Ethel Jemima Somerset, who lived from 1857 to 1940)

[nobodys-heroes]

Body Swap! Body Swap! Body Swap!