Oxford
The historic city of dreaming spires, with its world-famous university colleges, museums, riverside walks and renowned restaurants and pubs.
The historic city of dreaming spires, with its world-famous university colleges, museums, riverside walks and renowned restaurants and pubs.
Oxford is forty minutes away but feels like a different world — particularly on a weekday, when the coach parties have gone and it's just you and a city that's been arguing about ideas for eight hundred years. The colleges, the Ashmolean, the Bodleian, the covered market, the pubs tucked down medieval alleys: there's more here than you can do in one day, which is a good problem to have. Free museums, punting on the river, rooftop views from Carfax Tower, and restaurants from a long-running Thai on the High Street to a proper brasserie in a former banking hall — it rewards anything from a half-day to a full one.
Start at Radcliffe Camera, if only to stand in the square and let the geometry sink in. From there it's a short walk to the Bodleian, where you can join a tour of Divinity School (the room that doubled as Hogwarts' infirmary) or simply wander the quad and admire one of the world's great research libraries. The Ashmolean on Beaumont Street earns a couple of unhurried hours: Raphael drawings, Alfred the Great's jewel, and a rooftop restaurant that makes a very good lunch stop. In the afternoon, hire a punt from Magdalen Bridge and let someone else worry about the pole while you drift under the willows along the Cherwell. When your arms give out, head back through the covered market, which has been selling cheese, game and flowers since 1774, and then reward yourself with a pint at the Turf Tavern, tucked down a medieval alley and unchanged, more or less, since the thirteenth century.
Oxford is roughly 35 minutes from Well Cottage by car. The easiest approach is to park at the Redbridge park-and-ride on the southern edge of the city (frequent buses run into the centre every few minutes) and leave the narrow streets to the cyclists and the dons. If you'd rather not drive at all, Kingham station, about 15 minutes from the cottage, has direct services to Oxford in under an hour. The city rewards a midweek visit: August weekends bring coach parties and the colleges can feel crowded. May morning (1 May) is magical if you happen to be staying, with choral singing from Magdalen Tower at dawn and morris dancers in the streets, though the Turf Tavern opens early and the queues form fast. Oxford pairs well with a Blenheim Palace visit on the same day, or with a stop at Chipping Norton on the way home for provisions and coffee.
All of this on the doorstep, and your own thatched cottage to come home to. Sleeps seven, less than a mile from Soho Farmhouse.