Not read Parson’s Pleasure yet and only been to Oxford a few times, mainly to do interviews, so was unaware of “the rollers”. Look like great fun. I take it only the brave and bonkers negotiate them standing up? Must make quite a racket going down.
Talking of a sense of place in fiction, an author brilliant at it was Agatha Christie. In The Clocks, set in Dover just post-war, she perfectly captures the essence of a country still shaking off the destruction of WW2 bombing. Bomb-sites, ruined pubs, empty factories – all “adventure playgrounds ” for kids at the time (I was one – in London).