Oxford Excursion

Philippa is an Oxford educated historian with specialist training in Art History. A qualified teacher with over 15 years experience as a resident guide and teacher at Dulwich Picture Gallery. For the last two years she has been on an intensive course learning about this great city. A Londoner all her adult life, she enjoys all aspects of the city, from the architecture to the food markets, from the parks and riverside walks to the galleries and city churches. Her particular interests are the quirkier, less well-known places which only a long standing Londoner gets to know.

Isabella has lived, studied and worked in Oxford for much of her life. After school in Oxford she moved to undertake a degree in History of Art and Italian at University College London. Following careers in publishing and decorating, she settled in West Dorset where she took on the restoration of a Grade II -listed farmhouse. Over the years she has worked in a Sienese pasticceria, attended the University of Venice, written a best-seller on curtain-making, edited a catalogue with the Hermitage Museum, and raised two children. Now the Underhills are back in Oxford: Isabella and her journalist husband, William (who she met as an Oxford undergraduate), are both now members of the Oxford Guild of Guides. Her particular expertise lies in the history and culture of the city and university, but she’s also passionate about the houses, churches, and gardens of the surrounding area.

William Underhill is a writer by profession and a historian by inclination. Since leaving Oxford University, he has worked as a print and radio journalist in Britain and overseas. For more than 20 years he was employed as a correspondent in London for Newsweek magazine, writing on subjects from Afghanistan to the arts. He has also written a guide to the Thames waterfront in London. Six years ago he returned to Oxford and – together with his wife, Isabella - is a member of the Oxford Guild of Guides. He still contributes occasionally to The New York Times and Architect magazine on architecture and design, and works part-time as an editor for The Week.