Port Meadow, Oxford meadow and many birds can often be seen. At the eastern edge of Port Meadow, just north of the entrance from Aristotle Lane, is Burgess Field, a reclaimed landfill site and home to a nature reserve. It covers an area of about and a circular path around the edge of the reserve takes you through some small copses. The River Thames (known as the Isis in this area) flows past this large grazing meadow. This is where the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) and the Reverend Robinson Duckworth rowed up the river on 4 July 1862 with three young
Charles Dodgson (priest) at Preston Brook, and held weekly services there for the bargees. In 1843 Dodgson was given the Crown living of Croft, Yorkshire, by the Prime Minister, Robert Peel, at the urging of Longley. In 1852 he was additionally collated as a canon of Ripon Cathedral and in 1854 became the Archdeacon of Richmond. At Croft he restored the chancel of St Peter's Church and once again started a school, sacrificing part of the glebe to it. He taught there, as did his wife and later some of his children. Dodgson was a contemporary and college friend of Edward Bouverie Pusey,