Woodstock

Woodstock

Woodstock has the air of a town that knows its own worth and feels no need to advertise it. The streets are lined with warm Cotswold stone, the proportions are Georgian and generous, and the whole place carries itself with a quiet elegance. It has been a royal borough since the twelfth century, when Henry II kept a hunting lodge and deer park here. That royal connection reached its grandest expression with Blenheim Palace, the monumental country house given to the first Duke of Marlborough by a grateful nation and later the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill. The palace and its grounds, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, remain the town's centrepiece and its greatest draw.

In the town itself, the pleasures are more intimate. Park Street and High Street are good for independent shops, galleries and antique dealers that reward a slow browse. The Bear Hotel, one of England's oldest coaching inns, is a handsome spot for lunch, and The Woodstock Arms does a fine pint in relaxed surroundings. The Oxfordshire Museum, free to enter, has a walled garden where a life-size dinosaur cast keeps children entertained. Beyond the palace gates, Capability Brown's landscape opens out across the lake, past the Column of Victory, through ancient parkland that you can walk for hours. Woodstock sits about twenty minutes from Well Cottage by car.

For anyone drawn to Churchill beyond the palace, the churchyard of St Martin in Bladon — where he is buried alongside Clementine beneath a plain family headstone, exactly as he requested — is five minutes from Woodstock town and well worth a quiet detour. The Kings Arms on the High Street is a handsome choice for a more formal lunch; the various small cafes off the main square are reliable for coffee and something good in the afternoon. A day that takes in the palace grounds in the morning, a slow wander through the town after, and the Bladon churchyard before driving home makes for one of the more satisfying days this part of Oxfordshire offers. The road back to Ledwell through the Enstone lanes is one of the nicer drives of the area — worth taking slowly rather than cutting straight to the A44. Blenheim also runs a miniature railway through the park that younger children enjoy enormously, and the walled garden and butterfly house within the estate add easily another hour without the day feeling overfull. The formal water terraces on the south front of the palace, restored in the early twentieth century by Achille Duchêne, are among the finest formal gardens in England and are often overlooked by visitors who head straight for the landscape park.