AN OXFORD tour guide once told me how Queen Victoria had only visited the city on one occasion.

“She called it a dark, damp and monkish place” he explained, wiping suntan lotion onto his bald head, “and never graced us with her presence again.”

The visit in question took place on December 12, 1860, marking the completion of her eldest son’s studies here.

The 19-year-old Prince of Wales, our future Edward VII, was officially enrolled at Christ Church. However, he had spent most of his year living at Frewin Hall off New Inn Hall Street, in the company of his own chef.

Also resident was Governor Robert Bruce, the brave man employed to keep him in check. The Prince enjoyed frequent hunting trips and acquired a taste for tobacco during his time here.

Yet he was months away from acquiring his unquenchable thirst for the ladies.

In fact, on the Wednesday morning in question, he was on his way to Oxford’s Great Western Railway station to greet his mother.

The Queen had left Windsor at 10am, accompanied by Prince Albert and an entourage including her children Prince Alfred and Princess Alice.

Her Majesty stepped out at 11.25 on to the red carpet which had been rolled out across the railway station platform, bowed and smiled.

The cortege followed a route lined with well-dressed cheering people, which took them along Park End Street, New Road, Queen Street and Cornmarket to Frewin Hall.

The Queen visited Christ Church, Magdalen College, New College, the University Museum, the Bodleian Library, the Examination Schools, the Sheldonian, and the chapels of Balliol and Exeter – all before lunch.

“God Save the Queen” was played incessantly, everywhere she went. After lunch at Frewin Hall, the Royal party continued to the University Museum and then stopped at the Taylorian Institute, where the Queen had been expected before lunch.

By the time the royal party arrived however, the red carpet had been pulled up from Beaumont Street and the doors locked. So the Queen and Prince Albert had to be sneaked in through a door around the back.

The cortege then travelled back to the GWR station where the royal train departed at 3.50pm and arrived back at Windsor Castle at 5.20pm, just in time for a pre-dinner snifter.

Her Majesty’s favourite drink was reputedly a cocktail of claret and single malt whisky.

A year and two days after the Oxford visit, Prince Albert was dead.

Although the diagnosis was typhoid fever, it is claimed the Queen blamed worry caused by the Prince of Wales’ indiscretions for sending her husband to his grave. For within months of leaving Oxford young Bertie began bedding actresses and bathing in Champagne like a trooper.

The Prince himself did come back to Oxford, opening our Town Hall in 1897. And in the process I hope, showed the people of Oxford how to party properly.