The obvious forebear to this short book was Sharp's plan for Oxford, Oxford Replanned. Indeed, though the text was substantially new most of his views expressed on the Oxford townscape can be discerned in the earlier work. Furthermore, in order to keep costs of production as low as possible nearly all the photographs were recycled from Oxford Replanned. But the book also represents a more developed and coherent treatise on both some components of Oxford and on the idea of townscape overall and as such its genealogy also relates to Sharp's more general works, such as the two editions of English Panorama.
At the heart of the book is an attempt to capture the character of a place. And whilst the subject was a very special place, Oxford, Sharp held that the observational principles he used and ideas of good townscape would hold good anywhere. Good townscape does not equal good architecture; '... the appreciation and enjoyment of townscape is not in the least limited to places where good architecture exists, nor to those who have expert eyes for it.... A thousand English country towns will give it in a vivid degree. So, sometimes, will a Middlesbrough, a Reading, perhaps even a Slough' (p11). Sharp adjudged the quality of Oxford's townscape as particularly special not so much for the quality of the architecture as for the way that Oxford shows it. He distinguished here between 'show' and 'display', for 'Oxford is reticent, secretive, inward-looking. Its full appeal is not immediate... [but] it is very rewarding... in the way that its buildings are so composed together (or, if composed suggests too conscious an arrangement, so juxtaposed) as to produce a wonderful rich and varied townscape' (p9). Sharp then described how his concept of townscape did not derive from a Renaissance emphasis upon formal order and display but from something more varied, intricate and intimate. Central to this was the idea of movement, '... as the observer moves, the buildings alter not only in the relations of their parts but in their relations to their environment. Thus the limiting conception of the individual building, or the street-scene, as a three-dimensional still-life disappears. Thus, whether we consciously admit it or not, our architectural experience becomes kinetic, becomes a complicated resolution of changing relations. And so, of course, it is not only enriched but also enormously enlarged' (p10).
Following this introductory preamble Sharp considered Oxford by way of a chapter concerned with 'kinetic essences' and then chapters on main streets, colleges and little streets. The chapter on kinetic essences was in essence a fuller exploration of Catte Street and in particular the grand kinetic experience of the Bodleian cube, Radcliffe rotunda and St. Mary's spire that he had first addressed in the frontispiece of Oxford Replanned. As well as a lengthier treatment of this progression, travelling south down Catte Street, Sharp also considered the street travelling north (held to be a lighter, subtler experience) and the prospect through a series of arches running through the middle of the Bodleian Library (held to have a pure early-Renaissance quality - exciting because of its rarity in Oxford). 'Perambulation in Main Streets' gives most attention to the High Street, 'one of the finest pieces of sustained townscape in the world' (p18), again a development of a preoccupation evident in Oxford Replanned. It is worth quoting at length: 'Here is dignity without display; form without formality; an aptitude for creating lofty, even sublime, effects without pomposity or arrogance; an amiable austerity; an immense variety of incident within a broad general totality. And this miracle of harmony-in-conflict is sustained in a series of well-punctuated instalments for three-quarters of a mile on both sides of a street curving broadly like a great river' (p19). And: 'Perhaps the most important single element in all this piece of townscape, however, is... a mere tree. The sycamore between All Souls and Queen's is one of the great trees of the world: an ordinary specimen of its kind, it has become, by virtue of its position and its tremendous contribution to this great work of art, the supreme Sycamore of sycamores, a very Tree of trees' (p19). And after further extensive discussion of this tree, 'this miraculously situated tree displays to perfection the essential quality and invaluable contribution of the foil in the collective art of townscape' (p19). Sharp extended his description of perambulating High Street over several pages to include walking eastwards and westwards on both sides of the street; that is four walks in total. The other main streets were much more briefly dealt with. St Giles ('something of nobility', p31), Beaumont Street ('brilliant oddness', p32), Broad Street ('Oxford's great failure', p32), Cornmarket Street ('not any very great shakes', p33, but redeemed by the presence of Tom Tower) and St Aldate's (again, with Tom Tower as key).
With 'Perambulation in Colleges' Sharp shifted his attention to what he regarded as a very different type of townscape: 'The particular aesthetic experience to be gained here.... is very different from that which is enjoyed in the public streets... the experience here is less one of a slowly unfolding and progressive succession of views than of short staccato scenes succeeding, supplementing, and contrasting with each other as well as with the scenes outside... [they are] very far from the experience given by the monumental and formally associated set-pieces of the Renaissance ideal... they tend to be comparatively small-scaled, and at least faintly, and sometimes markedly, eccentric... And the aesthetic experience they give us is half-way between that of the kinetic movement of the street and that of the near-static picture of the architectural set-piece' (p38-39). Sharp then examined the townscape experience of Christ Church and Corpus Christi (in some detail) and Merton (fleetingly). One of his preoccupations in analysing Christ Church was its architectural eccentricity, including the difficulty of navigating between Quads - as well as a lack of visual clues to enable progression, he calculated that walking between the two college gates entailed fifteen right-angle turns.
The final chapter of Oxford Observed was concerned with 'little streets', which Sharp considered as 'in their own way, ...as important in Oxford's townscape as are the main streets and the college sequences... chiefly because of their value as complements to the others, foiling, setting off, enhancing, by contrast with their own modest and more familiar character...' (p51). Although, 'most of the smaller streets in inner Oxford have, in fact, outstanding qualities of their own...' (p51). He considered Holywell Street to be a minor street equivalent to the High Street. Turl Street, Ship Street and Magpie Lane were held to have more of a still than a kinetic character.