Macdonald Randolph Hotel

Macdonald Randolph Hotel ("The Randolph") is a hotel in Oxford, England. It is in central Oxford on the south side of Beaumont Street, at the corner with Magdalen Street, opposite the Ashmolean Museum and close to the Oxford Playhouse. The hotel's architecture is Victorian Gothic in style.

The hotel featured in the Inspector Morse television series several times, in particular in the episode entitled "The Wolvercote Tongue". The cast stayed at the hotel during filming in 1987 and there is now a Morse Bar.

It is only relatively recently that Macdonald Hotels Ltd officially renamed the Randolph Hotel as the "Macdonald Randolph Hotel".

Construction of the Randolph Hotel began in 1864 by William Wilkinson, an architect who also designed many houses in North Oxford. There was debate about the building's design.John Ruskin favoured Gothic revival like the nearby Martyrs' Memorial. The City Council wanted a classical style since the rest of Beaumont Street was early 19th century Regency. A compromise was attained with a simplified Gothic façade, similar to the Oxford University Museum and the Oxford Union buildings, but in brick.

The hotel was named not after Lord Randolph Churchill, who was connected with Blenheim Palace to the north of Oxford, but because it was near the Randolph Gallery in the new Ashmolean Museum opposite. The gallery was built as a result of a thousand-pound gift left by Dr Francis Randolph, a former Principal of St Alban Hall (now part of Merton College), who died in 1796.

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