Adderbury and Bloxham Grove

The Adderbury and Bloxham Grove walk is a 3.1-mile (5.1km) circular route from the Methodist chapel on the High Street in Adderbury, 3 miles south of Banbury. It is easy, with about 73m of climbing, and takes about an hour and a half. There are stiles, and The Bell is a minute from the start.

Most of the route follows the paths of the Adderbury Circular Walk, written by the village's footpath committee and published by Cherwell District Council in 2007, but it runs the other way round. The council's waymarks were set up for the anticlockwise direction, so any you find will point against you. The council gives 3.6 miles for its version. Its current version on Go Jauntly, made with the council and last checked in May 2025, measures 5.2km. This line measures 3.1 miles.

Adderbury: the church, the brook and Manor Road

The first kilometre goes through the old village, so it is the part to take slowly. The High Street drops past The Bell to Water Lane, and St Mary's Church is less than 100m off the line. It is Grade I, and its page says it is open every day from 9.30am to 5pm, so it is an easy first or last stop. Look at the carved friezes outside before you go in.

The Sor Brook divides East from West Adderbury, and you cross it on New Road. Beyond the bridge, the council's leaflet picks out Le Halle Place, where Cross Hill Road meets Manor Road. It was the home of Janet Blunt from 1896, and between 1916 and 1919 she noted down the Adderbury morris dances from William Walton. Manor Road itself, the leaflet says, was known to villagers as Mud End and once made Adderbury cheese. The leaflet is frank that the flavour was poor, which may be why it stopped. Most of these buildings are homes, so look from the road.

Bloxham Grove and the Warriner windmill

The Warriner windmill is the landmark of the walk, and you see it from outside only. It is a small timber post mill, built in 1865 by the engineer Henry Warriner, listed Grade II and not open. The line stays about 125m from it at the top of the climb, and we found no public path right up to it, so stay on the right of way. The leaflet gives the corner of the Bloxham Grove garden wall as the viewpoint, with Bloxham church in the distance beyond.

The leaflet dates Bloxham Grove's yeoman farmhouse to 1715 and says it belonged in the early nineteenth century to George Warriner, a farmer who experimented with new crops and methods. On the avenue below it, look back for Adderbury's spire. The saying is local: Bloxham for length, Adderbury for strength, King's Sutton for beauty.

Lower Grove Mill and the Sor Brook

Lower Grove Mill is where the walk drops to the water, and the bridge is the place to stop. The leaflet says a mill here is recorded in Domesday, that it was called Clare Mill in the fifteenth century, and that Henry Warriner's experimental steam launch, the Firefly, turned round at this spot. The weir and the small gauging station by the bridge are part of the Environment Agency's flood warning network, according to the leaflet.

The leaflet calls the valley bottom a good example of lowland river country, with wet pastures, hedgerows and pollarded willows, and it mentions rare plants and the marsh fritillary butterfly. That account is from 2007, so treat it as a reason to look and not a promise of what you will see. The Sor Brook also marks the boundary between Adderbury and Bloxham parishes.

Where to eat on the walk

Two pubs with pages here stand at the Adderbury end of the walk, so plan to eat before or after it. The Bell is on the line, on the High Street, but opens only from 5pm from Monday to Thursday, and from noon on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Food comes on set nights. For a weekday lunch use The Red Lion, about 140m off the line on The Green, which serves food from breakfast until 9pm every day. Both welcome dogs. The Coach and Horses, a Wadworth pub, stands beside the line on The Green, but we could not confirm its hours, so ring first on 01295 810422.

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What walkers report

We have no dated walkers' reports for this route to pass on yet, and our own walk-through with the GPX is still to come. The nearest thing is a report to Oxfordshire County Council on FixMyStreet in October 2026, of the path from Croft Lane to the Oxford Road being overgrown. That path branches off beside the line, which does not use it. Our searches in November 2026 found no closure on the route, though the county's notices are not fully searchable, so look for signs.

Cherwell's current version of the walk on Go Jauntly, last checked in May 2025, warns that some field paths turn muddy after wet weather, and counts one stile, several kissing gates and one narrow footbridge. The 2007 leaflet counted two stiles and two narrow footbridges, and warns of grazing animals in several fields. OpenStreetMap maps stiles in other places too, at the end of Manor Road and beside Croft Lane, so allow for more than one. The council says it usually checks its routes once a year, and that many flood in and after wet weather: turn back if the water is deep. Boots are the right call for most of the year. The first kilometre is on village roads.

Parking and getting there

There is no car park in Adderbury. Cherwell's leaflet says there is usually space on the south side of The Green, about 100m from the start, and the walk comes back past it. The S4 stops at the Methodist Church on its way to Banbury, and opposite Green Farm by The Green on its way to Oxford, so this works without a car: our bus page has the details. On the Day of Dance, which fell on 25 April in 2026, the road through the village closed from 10am to 7pm, so check the date first.

To make more of the village, Adderbury Lakes is reached along Lake Walk, east of the main road, and the parish council's nature reserve is an easy addition. Adderbury House is close to The Green. The council's Village Trail, in the same leaflet, is 1.8 miles round the old buildings. Our guide to villages near Banbury sets Adderbury among its neighbours.

Other walks nearby

Three more walks are within a short drive. The Broughton Road to Wroxton Obelisk Circular is a longer field walk on the other side of Banbury. The Banbury Ironstone Heritage Walk leaves from the town itself, and the Edgehill Circular is the one to choose if you want a ridge.