Opposite
Christ Church,
Oxford,
England, is
Alice's Shop on
St Aldate's. It was formerly frequented in
Victorian times by
Alice Liddell, the inspiration for
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and
Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Saw There, who used to buy sweets there. She lived at Christ Church with her father
Henry Liddell, who was Dean of the College and
Cathedral.
Alice's Shop is now a
gift shop selling gifts, souvenirs and memorabilia all based on
Alice. The address of the shop in Oxford is 83 St Aldates Oxford OX1 1RA.
== The Old Sheep Shop ==<!-- This section is linked from
Sheep -->
The shop was featured as the
Old Sheep Shop in
Lewis Carroll's 1871 book
Through the Looking-Glass. One of the original
John Tenniel illustrations shows the inside of the shop. It was used as a setting in Chapter 5 of the book (
Wool and Water) and is owned by a
sheep in the story :
The shop is very characteristic of the dream-like qualities within the Looking-Glass world, in that every time Alice tries to focus on a specific object on its many shelves it changes shape and shifts to another shelf. At another point the shop itself vanishes and Alice finds herself outside with the sheep in a boat, having been given a pair of
knitting needles which turn into
oars in her hands. The sheep herself continues to be make scornful, personal remarks and then finally, on appearing back in the shop, sells Alice an egg, which promptly turns into
Humpty Dumpty.
On leaving the shop at the end of...
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