The Randolph Hotel, also known as The Randolph Hotel by Graduate Hotels, is a 5-star hotel in Oxford, England, on the south side of Beaumont Street, at the corner with Magdalen Street, opposite the Ashmolean Museum and close to the Oxford Playhouse. The hotel building is in the Victorian Gothic style.
The hotel featured in the Inspector Morse television series several times, in particular the episode "The Wolvercote Tongue". The cast stayed at the hotel during filming in 1987 and there is now a Morse Bar. It was also in the follow-up series Lewis.
History
Construction of the Randolph Hotel began in 1864, to a design by William Wilkinson,[1][2] an architect who also designed many houses in North Oxford.[3] There was debate about the building's design. John Ruskin favoured Gothic Revival like the nearby Martyrs' Memorial. The City Council wanted a classical style since the rest the buildings in Beaumont Street were early 19th century Regency. A compromise was attained with a simplified Gothic façade, similar to the Oxford University Museum and the Oxford Union buildings, but in brick.
The hotel was named not after Lord Randolph Churchill, who was connected with Blenheim Palace to the north of Oxford, but after Dr Francis Randolph, an eighteenth century university benefactor.[4] The university or Randolph Galleries (now part of the Ashmolean Museum) were built as a result of a thousand-pound gift left by Dr Randolph, a former