The Oxford that I visit from time to time when asleep, is built of green granite, and it is much hillier, with steeply sloping streets and a river faster flowing and less lazy than the Thames - certainly much faster and cleaner than the Cherwell.
The dream Oxford still has a distributed university of colleges, but they look quite different. Less frilly (well, granite is tougher to carve than sandstone, I suppose) and generally more squat in shape. There are quite a lot of evergreen trees - yews and laurel particularly in the parks and gardens, though there is also one street that has a very impressive avenue of beeches. The beech avenue is very pretty, but annoys the street cleaner as the big trees drop so many leaves: several times I have heard him muttering about it. He seems rather a grumpy bloke.
While I was there, I bumped into
I can't remember the name of the pub now - Somebody's Head, I think - but it's one I've been to in several other dreams. It is a bit large and noisy, but it has a nice beer garden that slopes down to the river, and they have a large shaggy dog that pads around the bar area. The pub is one of the oldest buildings and has exposed beams.
Last night when I was there, I think there was some sort of motor rally going on. There were some very oddly shaped cars on the road. Some of them were so long and thin they didnt' look like you could get a human being inside them, or not with comfort, anyway. They were very shiny and new-looking.