Atlas - Old Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford

We're on a quick visit to Oxford to visit Son #3 who is coming to the end of his Masters Course in History. Whilst walking round with my camera I took this photo of a statue of Atlas. The statue adorns the top of the Radcliffe Observatory which was built in the late 18th Century following the observation by Thomas Hornsby of the transit of Venus across the sun in 1769 from a room in the nearby Radcliffe Infirmary. The observatory moved to South Africa in 1939 to avoid light pollution; the building is now part of Green Templeton College. The statue itself is the work of John Bacon.
 
The extra is a weather vane on the top of Harris Manchester College. Typical of Oxbridge!
 
(After Oxford we're continuing our travels round England - apologies that comments will be few & far between for a few days.)