Things to Do & See
Palaces, gardens, wildlife parks, spas, museums and countryside pursuits: the best of the Cotswolds from your doorstep.
Palaces, gardens, wildlife parks, spas, museums and countryside pursuits: the best of the Cotswolds from your doorstep.
What surprised me most when we first started letting the cottage was how much there is to do within half an hour of Ledwell. Blenheim Palace is twenty minutes. The RSC at Stratford is forty-five. Oxford — its museums, covered market, punting on the Cherwell — is barely thirty. And that's before you factor in the gardens, which are exceptional in this part of Oxfordshire: Rousham, Hidcote, Broughton Grange, Barton Abbey a couple of minutes up the road.
The list below is our honest recommendation, not an exhaustive directory — places we've been, pubs we like, things worth the drive. Everything has a page with proper directions and what to expect when you get there.
A much-loved heated open-air pool with a 25m main pool and toddler pool, sauna and cold plunge, lawns and a poolside café.
A seasonal flower farm in neighbouring Little Tew with pick-your-own flowers through the summer — bring scissors and a basket.
A rare inland heathland course — gorse, heather, sandy turf that drains all year, and greens that rival courses charging three times the green fee.
There's little more English than village cricket on the green — wander over to neighbouring Great Tew for a summer afternoon's play.
A private fly fishery at Rectory Farm — two spring-fed lakes stocked with Brown, Rainbow and Tiger Trout, family-owned for fifty years. Season March–November.
Pick your own strawberries, raspberries, sweetcorn and pumpkins on a 45-acre family farm east of Oxford — with a café, farm shop and woodland play area. March–December.
Hire a punt at Magdalen Bridge and drift along the Cherwell past the colleges and meadows — the quintessential lazy Oxford afternoon.
A serious clay shooting ground at Enstone Airfield — open to beginners through accomplished shots, with expert instruction, group packages and simulated game days. Tuesday to Saturday.
An 18-hole championship course set across 170 acres of Cotswold countryside near Chipping Norton, with USGA-standard greens, a TrackMan driving range, PGA coaching and full visitor green fees.
Footpaths lead straight from the garden gate — circular walks to Great Tew, field paths through the estate and quiet lanes in every direction. Boots by the door and you're away.
A spectacular Grade I-listed Baroque country house near Aynho — a private members' and events estate famous for its flamboyant interiors and flying taxidermy.
One of the world's great historic libraries — tour the medieval Divinity School and Duke Humfrey's reading room, a Hogwarts filming location.
Sir Winston and Lady Clementine Churchill are buried in the peaceful churchyard of St Martin's, Bladon, beside the Blenheim estate where he was born.
One of the UK's leading bird of prey centres, with around 150 raptors from pygmy falcons to eagles and vultures. Daily flying displays at 11:30am, 1:30pm and 3pm, plus hands-on experiences where you fly the birds yourself.
The home of British motor racing — visit the interactive Silverstone Museum, book a circuit driving experience, or come for the roar of the British Grand Prix.
The famous Soho House members' club set in the Oxfordshire countryside — spa, pools, tennis, dining and a cinema, less than a mile from the cottage.
A magnificent baroque palace and UNESCO World Heritage Site at Woodstock, birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill, set in 2,000 acres of Capability Brown parkland.
A romantic moated and fortified manor house near Banbury, family home of the Fiennes since 1377 and a favourite filming location.
A rare and atmospheric Jacobean country house near Moreton-in-Marsh, built between 1607 and 1612 and left wonderfully unrestored by the National Trust.
A great Palladian house of 1722 near Charlbury, Churchill's secret moonlit-weekend retreat in the war and now home to the Ditchley Foundation. Open only for occasional tours.
The secret WWII home of the codebreakers who cracked Enigma, and birthplace of the computer. About an hour away, and a full day out well worth the drive.
Oxford's grandest college — Tom Quad, the cathedral and the Great Hall that inspired Hogwarts. Open to visitors year-round.
Opened in 1748 and reckoned the oldest purpose-built concert hall in Europe — intimate chamber music, home to the Sunday Coffee Concerts.
A grand Tudor house, home of the Throckmorton family and steeped in Gunpowder Plot history, with riverside gardens.
The grassy earthworks of an 11th-century motte-and-bailey castle, free to roam and once the Oxfordshire base of William the Conqueror's half-brother.
A proudly independent, family-run Victorian tower brewery founded in 1849, with guided tours, shire-horse drays and a visitor centre.
One of the most beautiful colleges, with its own deer park, riverside Addison's Walk and a famous bell tower.
Medieval cloisters and gardens within the old city walls — and a Harry Potter filming location.
A trio of prehistoric megalithic monuments on the Oxfordshire–Warwickshire border: the King's Men stone circle, the Whispering Knights and the King Stone.
A Cotswold manor crammed with one eccentric collector's extraordinary treasures, set in a lovely terraced garden. National Trust.
A handsome Tudor manor built in 1539 by an ancestor of George Washington, telling the story of the families who lived there over the centuries.
A 3,500-acre working estate of ironstone valleys, thatched cottages and rolling farmland surrounding the picture-postcard village of Great Tew.
A Mughal-style country house and Indian water garden near Moreton-in-Marsh — the only authentically Mughal palace in northern Europe, said to have inspired Brighton's Royal Pavilion.
James Wyatt's hexagonal Cotswold folly on the second-highest hill in the wolds. Climb it for views said to reach sixteen counties, plus a William Morris story and a Cold War bunker.
A beautiful 15-acre private garden a couple of minutes away — walled borders, a lake, woodland walks and glasshouses, open a handful of days each year for the National Garden Scheme.
One of the country's finest private tree collections — magical in spring blossom and autumn colour, with a garden centre and café.
Contemporary gardens of more than 130 acres near Banbury, centred on a striking three-terraced walled garden by designer Tom Stuart-Smith.
One of England's great Arts-and-Crafts gardens — a series of intimate outdoor 'rooms' full of rare plants. National Trust.
A romantic, plantswoman's hillside garden next door to Hidcote — home of the famous, vigorous Kiftsgate rose.
An exquisite 18th-century landscape garden by William Kent, almost untouched since his day and widely held to be one of England's most influential gardens.
A National Trust country mansion near Banbury, remodelled as a 1930s weekend retreat with terraced gardens and an outstanding art and porcelain collection.
Twenty acres of beautifully landscaped ornamental gardens famous for their herbaceous borders and rose garden, with a plant centre, gallery and tea shop.
Britain's oldest botanic garden, founded 1621, by the Cherwell beneath Magdalen tower: walled family borders, Victorian glasshouses and over 5,000 plants.
Britain's oldest public museum — art and antiquities from ancient Egypt to the Pre-Raphaelites, and free to enter.
A free, family-friendly museum on Banbury's canalside, telling the town's history alongside a changing programme of touring exhibitions.
A leading contemporary art gallery on Pembroke Street, showing ambitious international exhibitions alongside community and education programmes. Free entry. Tue–Sat 11am–6pm, Sun 11am–4pm.
Dinosaurs, dodos and a soaring neo-Gothic glass roof — Oxford's natural history museum (the Pitt Rivers sits just behind). Free entry.
An atmospheric, gas-lit museum of anthropology and archaeology — totem poles, treasures and curiosities from across the world.
A free county museum in Woodstock spanning local history, art and archaeology, with a garden displaying real dinosaur footprints.
The world's oldest purpose-built museum, on Broad Street: Einstein's blackboard, the finest astrolabe collection anywhere, and cabinets of gilded instruments. Free to enter.
Oxford University's museum of historic musical instruments, now at the Schwarzman Centre on Woodstock Road, from serpents to harpsichords and a Javanese gamelan. Free, but open just two afternoons a week.
Oxford's leading theatre — drama, dance, comedy and family shows in the heart of the city, with the studio Burton Taylor next door.
Oxford's beloved arthouse cinema in Jericho — independent, classic and quality mainstream films, with a rooftop bar.
World-class Shakespeare and new drama in the RSC's riverside theatres at Stratford — well worth the drive for an evening or matinee.
A cosy independent cinema in Chipping Norton with sofas and armchairs, craft drinks and the latest releases — a lovely night out.
A much-loved little producing theatre in the heart of ‘Chippy’ — drama, music, comedy, panto and live screenings, all five minutes away.
Oxford's oldest independent cinema, a much-loved single-screen picture house on Cowley Road showing the best new releases and classics.
Adam Henson's family farm — 50+ rare breeds, bottle-feed the lambs in spring, an adventure barn for wet days and seasonal events year-round. A great day out with younger children.
160 acres of parkland and gardens around a Victorian manor near Burford, home to more than 1,500 animals from rhinos and lions to lemurs and penguins.
The UK's only crocodile zoo, home to crocodiles, alligators and other reptiles, with daily feeds and close-encounter experiences.
A designer outlet of more than 150 luxury and lifestyle boutiques offering year-round savings, one of the UK's best-known shopping destinations.
A treasure trove of sporting and library antiques on Burford's handsome High Street — vintage leather, oars, croquet sets and curiosities.
A historic Victorian indoor market in the heart of Oxford, with over 50 independent shops, cafés and food stalls under one roof — from a cheesemonger and butcher to coffee roasters, a florist and independent clothing. Thu–Sat until 10pm.
The famous Cotswold pottery, hand-throwing terracotta flowerpots since 1976 — wander the workshops and stop for lunch at the Straw Kitchen café.
One of the Cotswolds' largest antiques centres — around 80 dealers over two floors of an old mill, furniture to kitchenalia.
A modern-day hardware store on Market Street — well-made everyday tools, handmade brushes, artisan pottery and durable textiles, all sourced to last a lifetime.
Oxford's landmark bookshop on Broad Street since 1879 — the vast underground Norrington Room, an antiquarian rare-books floor, and Blackwell's music and manga shops.
A luxury organic spa on the Daylesford estate — massages, facials, yoga, Pilates and The Spring hydrotherapy circuit, all using Bamford's own botanical products. B Corp certified and Soil Association partnered.
The Hay Barn spa — treatments, steam room, ice baths and a hydrotherapy circuit — a short stroll or cycle down the lane (for members and house guests).
All of this on the doorstep, and your own thatched cottage to come home to. Sleeps seven, less than a mile from Soho Farmhouse.