The King's Arms (colloquially known as the KA) is one of the main student public houses in Oxford, England. It is located in a prominent position on the corner of Parks Road and Holywell Street, opposite the New Bodleian Library building. Also nearby are Broad Street and the Clarendon Building, part of Oxford University. A popular local myth has it that the KA has the highest IQ per square foot of any pub or bar in the world. It was said that some dons held tutorials in the back bar as late as the 1960s. The pub is owned by Wadham College, which is located just to the north. Before Wadham reclaimed upper stories of the building in the 1960s, the Kings Arms had been a hotel, once popular with commercial travellers.
Its back bar was, until 1973, not open to women. There was a fire in that year, rumoured to have been started by radical feminists. The bar was temporarily closed, but reopened to both sexes.
Famous quotes containing the words king and/or arms:
“No king on earth is as safe in his job as a Trade Union official. There is only one thing that can get him sacked; and that is drink. Not even that, as long as he doesn’t actually fall down.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“Let arms yield to the toga, let the [victor’s] laurel yield to the [orator’s] tongue.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)