An historic site on Boars Hill, overlooking Oxford’s dreaming spires, has been secured for the public by Oxford Preservation Trust.

The trust has bought the ten-acre site from All Souls College, Oxford.

And as well as offering spectacular views of the city, the land includes an oak tree made famous by the 19th-century poet Matthew Arnold.

The preservation trust has acquired a significant land holding on Boars Hill, with the new site lying adjacent to the trust-owned Chilswell Fields.

The land is understood to have cost £70,000 and a fundraising campaign has been launched by the trust. About £25,000 has so far been raised.

The first poet to be identified with Boars Hill was Arthur Clough, a fellow of Oriel College, whose diaries show that the view inspired a poem written in 1842.

But it is Matthew Arnold, the university professor of poetry, who is forever linked to the site.

His poem Thyrsis contained the memorable description of Oxford as “that sweet city with her dreaming spires”.

His inspiration was found on an afternoon walk up “the track by Childsworth Farm”, when in fading light he glimpsed “a signal elm” that “crowns the hill”.

Philip Stewart, a trust member, said the poem inspired a succession of poets to make their homes on Boars Hill, including the war poets Robert Graves, Edmund Blunden and Robert Nichols.

He added: “The signal elm, which turns out to be an oak, has a striking form and survives today.”