Oxford circular walk via Godstow

Oxford circular via Wolvercote

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Distance: 8.1 (long), 7.5 (short) or 5.7 miles (finishing at Wolvercote).
Time without long breaks: 4 1/2, 4 or 3 hours walking, but add pub time.

Terrain: Easy – almost entirely flat.
How to get there and back: Train to Oxford and back.
Pubs: The Perch at Binsey, The Trout at Godstow and The Plough at Wolvercote are all worth a visit. There's also a seasonal riverside beer garden at Medley Manor Farm (open from May). Just off the canal path you'll find The Anchor, while the last stop is the Oxford Retreat.
More information: Part of this walk follows the Thames Path along the banks of the river, so it's best to check if there's any prospect of flooding before you set out. And bring your boots in case of mud.

This walk follows the River Thames northwards from Oxford. It includes some great riverside pubs, a church with a holy well and the ruins of a 12th-century abbey. There are several options for the return route back o Oxford. The full version includes a walk along the towpath of the Oxford Canal to the city centre. A slightly shorter route takes you the length of Port Meadow from where you can join the canal further down. The shortest version ends at the Plough in Wolvercote, which is near a bus stop with frequent buses back to the city. The flexibility of the route means it can be included as part of a day trip or combined with an evening out in the city. You can also easily make a full day of it by taking advantage of all the pubs.

Leave Oxford station via the main exit and walk down the station approach to the junction. Turn right and go under the railway bridge. Just after Abbey Road on your right, you will see a sign for the Thames Path by a bridge. Turn right here and follow the river north, heading out of the city. After about 300m, cross the footbridge over the Sheepwash Channel and turn left to continue walking along the river, with open countryside on the opposite bank. After about 1/2 mile go over another footbridge at the end of Fiddler's Island and carry on straight ahead, ignoring the bridge on your right.

The church is linked to St Frideswide, the patron saint of Oxford, who established an oratory here in the 8th century. The church itself dates from the 12th century. The well-head is underground, down some steps, with a triangular opening. St Frideswide is said to have fled to Binsey to avoid marriage to the King of Mercia. When the king was struck blind, she prayed to St Margaret who created the well with holy water which restored her sight. The well became a site of pilgrimage in medieval times because of the curing qualities of its water and is said to have been visited by Henry VIII. It was also the inspiration for Lewis Carroll's Treacle Well in Alice in Wonderland (see below).

Turn left to continue up the river. This is a lovely stretch of the walk, through grasslands and past poplar trees with the vast expanse of Port Meadow on the opposite bank. Expect to encounter swans, ducks and free-roaming cattle. After about a mile along the riverbank you come to a wooden gate and a bridge. Go over this to reach Godstow lock, which dates from the 1700s. When the lock house was built, it was constructed on condition it sold no ale to protect the interests of the nearby Trout Inn. Beyond the lock, through a gate, lie the ruins of Godstow Abbey.

On leaving the abbey, carry on walking along the river in the same direction as before until you reach a gate. Go through the gate and turn right over Godstow Bridge. On the other side is The Trout inn, a gastropub in a beautiful spot. We suggest sitting in the riverside beer garden at the back, opposite the island. Look out for the resident peacocks. We also saw a kingfisher here close-by on the riverbank. Turn right as you come out the pub and continue along the road towards Godstow village. You will come to another stone bridge which contains a memorial to two pilots whose monoplane crashed near here in 1912.

If you are doing the shorter version of the circular walk, turn right before the concrete bridge and take the path south aiming for the edge of the trees. Keeping the wood to your left (behind which lies the Burgess Field nature reserve), follow the track down until another track comes off on your left leading to a railway bridge. This comes out at Aristotle Road, with a recreation area to your right. Take the path on the left before the pedestrian crossing. This takes you directly to the canal. Turn right to head along the towpath to the city centre. If you fancy a break at this point, cross over the canal bridge to reach the Anchor pub.

You will come out by a lock. Turn right, go under the road bridge and walk along the canal path. After 300m you will come to another bridge and some steps. Go up the steps and turn left over the bridge to join a track that leads directly to The Plough and its lovely beer garden. If you are ending the walk here, the bus stop is about 400m from the pub. Go straight ahead with the flats on your right and walk to the junction. Turn right. The bus shelter is down the road on the left. Bus journeys into the city take about 20 mins (check Traveline for times from Goose Green Close).

After Walton Well bridge, the canal path soon runs alongside Castle Mill Stream. You pass the tower of St Barnabas church on the opposite bank, before crossing over a pretty footbridge on your left at Isis lock. With waterways either side of you, the path comes out at the road by Hythe Bridge. Turn right and cross over the bridge to reach the final pub, the Oxford Retreat, which has a riverside beer garden. A good place to end the day. Oxford station is about five minutes' walk from here. Continue down Hythe Bridge Street to Frideswide Square and it is up on your right.

With a marina on your right, after about 200m cross the river via the Red Bridge. On the other side of the bridge is Medley Manor Farm and The Medley, a seasonal bar and beer garden (check for opening times). Passing Bossoms Boatyard on your left, after about 200m, you will come to a track that forks off to the left, just before a pair of gates. Take this track, which has a wooden fence on the right, towards Binsey village. When the track ends, go through the gate and turn right. Then follow the lane round to the left, past a post box, heading towards the white houses. The lane leads to St Margaret of Antioch church and its holy well.

Head back down the lane the way you came, following it round to the right after you pass the houses. When you arrive back at the junction by the wooden signpost, turn left to reach The Perch, an 800-year-old thatched inn with a beautiful large beer garden. This is another site with a Lewis Carroll connection. There is another literary association, too. The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins visited the pub and wrote a poem called Binsey Poplars about the avenue of trees that ran along the river between here and Godstow. A winding path through the bushes at the back of the garden returns you directly to the Thames Path via a gate.

This 12th-century abbey and nunnery was established by Edith of Winchester at a spot where she saw a light 'shining down from heaven'. The abbey is most well-known for being the burial site of 'Fair' Rosamund Clifford (see panel below), the mistress of King Henry II and at the time considered to be one of England's 'greatest beauties'. The abbey gained a notorious reputation in the early middle ages due to 'unchaste' interactions between the nuns and young scholars from Oxford. It was seized and closed down during Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries.

Just after crossing the bridge there is a car park on your right. Head across this and through the wooden gate into a picnic area by the river, a popular bathing spot in summer. Go through the metal gate at the end, near a board displaying the history of Port Meadow aerodrome, and onto Wolvercote Common. Turn left, alongside a fenced off pen, and then go straight ahead towards a small concrete bridge over a ditch. Stretching before you to the south is Port Meadow, a huge open space of grassland, and home to wild horses and cattle and a nature reserve.

To continue on the longer walk (or if you are heading to the bus stop), cross over the concrete bridge and bear right, aiming for the bottom corner of the bushes ahead of you (which border an allotments patch) and then go along their southern edge. After passing the allotments, turn left and head diagonally up towards the houses. You will come to a green iron 'jubilee' gate that leads on to the road. Cross over and turn right, passing the entrance to a small nature reserve. Carry on along the pavement and over the railway bridge. Immediately after the bridge you will see some steps heading down. Take these to reach the Oxford Canal.

If you're walking back, return to the canal the way you came and continue along the towpath, past the boat moorings. After about 1 1/4 miles, after passing Frenchay Road Bridge, you will come to a bridge, with a wooden gate to the right. If you fancy another pub break here, go through the gate and take the path up to the road. Turn left over the bridge to reach the Anchor. Carrying on along the canal, the next bridge you come across is at Walton Well Road. Leaving the canal here will take you to the Jericho area, with its pubs and restaurants (including the Jericho Tavern music venue).

Lewis Carroll (the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, an Oxford scholar and tutor) gave his first public reading of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland at The Perch Inn in 1865. The pub was apparently one of his regular haunts, but it was also an appropriate location as the book was based on the events of 'A Golden Afternoon' (celebrated in its preface poem) – July 4, 1862 – when he and his friend Henry Liddell took Liddell's three young daughters (including Alice Liddell) on a boating trip up The Thames from Oxford, following the route of this walk. It was on that day he first recounted the story to the girls and was then urged to write it down. St Margaret's Well at Binsey apparently inspired the Treacle Well in the book (treacle comes from the Greek word theriac, meaning 'healing'). The outing started at Folly Bridge in Oxford, included a picnic at Port Meadow and ended at Godstow.

No doubt Carroll would have been aware that Godstow Abbey was the burial place of Rosamund Clifford, the 'Rose of the World' and the mistress of King Henry II. Regarded as one of the most beautiful women in England, she inspired poems, songs, stories and paintings – including two called Fair Rosamund in the Pre-Raphaelite style by Arthur Hughes and John William Waterhouse (see picture). She died c.1176, allegedly after being poisoned by Henry's wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, although there is scant evidence to support this. Her original tomb in the abbey church became a popular shrine, much to the displeasure of a bishop who thought it celebrated 'illicit and adulterous intercourse' and ordered her remains to be removed to the nuns' cemetery instead. A German visitor to Rosamund's grave in 1599 noted her faded epitaph (in Latin): 'Here in the tomb lies the rose of the world, not a pure rose; she who used to smell sweet, still smells – but not sweet.' KB

Full-day country walks in SE England and beyond

Oxford circular via Wolvercote

Click on the image below to access the full map on plotaroute

Full-day country walks in
SE England and beyond

Click on the image below to access
the full map on plotaroute