Oxenfurt, Novigrad and the Pontar
Two towns, one river. Oxenfurt is the university city on the south bank; Novigrad, the port, faces it across the water.
Oxenfurt
A city of about 140,000 people, Oxenfurt grew up around a ford and then a priory on the south bank of the Pontar, a little upstream of the estuary. The University’s oldest buildings stand along the river between Ferry Lane and Bellhouse Lane, with the Market Hill and the shopping streets behind them. The Riverside site, with the sciences, is a fifteen-minute walk east along the Embankment.
Novigrad
Novigrad, on the north bank, is the older and larger port, with its harbour basins and quays. It has always been the busier of the two towns and the cheaper place to live, and about 1,940 students live there.
The Pontar Crossing
The ferry runs from the Novigrad landing stage to the foot of Ferry Lane every twenty minutes from 06:40 to 23:20, and takes six minutes. It has run without a crew on board since 2015, under a licence from the Turing Registry held by Novigrad Harbour Authority, and its sailings are cancelled automatically in high water, which happened on 23 days in 2025. Students can buy a termly pass, part-paid by the Ferry Bursary. The road and rail crossing is the Pontar Bridge, upstream to the west.
Getting here
- By train: Oxenfurt Central is a twenty-minute walk from the Old Schools, with direct trains to London in just under two hours.
- By road: parking in the city centre is very limited and the University has no visitor parking there. The Riverside site has 140 pay-and-display spaces.
- By ferry: from Novigrad, as above.
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