Dedicated to the memory of the poet Matthew Arnold, this field and wood at the end of Jarn Way is an important part of the adjoining Jarn Mound complex. A plaque at the top of the field states
“This land named Matthew Arnold Field, being a principal foreground of the poet’s vision in Thyrsis and the Scholar Gipsy, was bought for the Oxford Preservation Trust through public subscription from both sides of the Atlantic.”
Situated on the west side of Boars Hill, on a clear day there are views from Matthew Arnold Field across the Vale of the White Horse to the Berkshire Downs to the southwest. However, much of the view originally seen from the site is now obscured by trees.
The field, which is grazed by a horse, is a sea of yellow buttercups in summer, and the circular footpath through the wood is popular with walkers.
Matthew Arnold was born in 1822, the son of the celebrated headmaster of Rugby, Thomas Arnold. Matthew attended Balliol College, Oxford and was a close friend of an older fellow Rugbeian, the poet Arthur Hugh Clough.
'The Scholar-Gipsy' is based on an old legend of a wandering scholar; Arnold uses it to evoke the places he visited with his Oxford friends, and to contrast the single-minded simplicity of the scholar-gipsy with the ‘strange disease of modern life’.
In later years, Arnold turned increasingly to writing prose, and was established as the leading critic of his day. He attacked the materialism and provincialism of English life and culture, arguing that England needed more intellectual curiosity and a more European outlook. He died in Liverpool in 1888 while waiting for his daughter Lucy to return from New York.