Colin Crosby Heritage Tours

Oxfordshire

Oxfordshire is a prosperous county in Southern England, where the Home Counties meet the Midlands.

It is a county of gently undulating countryside, with the lovely River Thames to the South (forming the boundary with Berkshire), the Chiltern Hills to the East and the beginnings of the beautiful Cotswolds to the West.

Oxford itself is a world-famous University city, with loads of history and a vibrant, busy present, where cars are built and “Inspector Morse” was filmed.

Banbury is an old market town, closer to the Midlands than to the Thames, and immortalised in the nursery rhyme “Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross”. Bicester is a well known hunting centre, and now houses the Bicester Village shopping mall.

Burford is a superb Cotswold town with a long High Street sloping down to the delightful River Windrush, and a historic parish church. Chipping Norton is a breezy market town, where the comedian Ronnie Barker ran an antique shop.

Dorchester-on-Thames has an Abbey, to which the Leicester Diocese moved during the Danish invasions. Henley-on-Thames is a famous boating centre.

Woodstock is another old market town, at the entrance to Blenheim Palace.

The Rollright Stones are a Bronze Age Stone Circle, and nearly as important to archaeology as Stonehenge and Avebury.

Blenheim Palace was built by Sir John Vanbrugh as a gift from the nation to John Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough, victor of the Battle of Blenheim. His wife was an intimate friend of Queen Anne. The Palace was also the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill, and as such is a much visited attraction.