Heyfords Circular from Heyford Station

The Heyfords Circular is a 3.4-mile (5.5km) circular walk from Heyford station in Lower Heyford. It follows the Oxford Canal north to Allen's Lock, crosses to Upper Heyford's church and comes back over fields to Lower Heyford's market square. It takes about two hours and is almost flat, through a valley that the council's guide says is largely a Conservation Target Area for wildlife.

Cherwell District Council publishes the route as its Cherwell Valley Heyfords Walk, and its older leaflet credits Lower Heyford Parish Council with devising it. Nobody from this guide has walked it yet. The directions come from the council's guide, its leaflet and the line we drew on OpenStreetMap's paths, and we will check them on foot.

The Oxford Canal from Heyford to Allen's Lock

The first half is towpath, about 2.2km of it. The council's leaflets say this southern section of the Oxford Canal opened in 1790 and that the wharf at Lower Heyford was an original feature; the tall red brick house behind the boatyard sheds is an early nineteenth-century canal house. The railway beside it came in 1850, and Heyford was one of the line's three original intermediate stations.

The Cherwell runs parallel through the trees on your left. Mill House, on the far side, is late eighteenth or early nineteenth century, probably on the site of the mill for which the course of the river was moved in the mid sixteenth century. Much of the valley is a Conservation Target Area, and in spring and summer the council's guide points out butterflies, bees and dragonflies along the bank. At times of flood, its older leaflet says, the flood meadows can look like a lake.

Upper Heyford and its church

Allen's Lock is where you leave the water and climb the short way into Upper Heyford. William of Wykeham bought the manor in 1380 for New College, Oxford, and the college's arms are on the buttresses of the tower of St Mary's, the only medieval part left when the church was rebuilt in 1865 to 1867. The early fifteenth-century barn built for the college, listed Grade I, stands on private farmland near Manor Farm, and we found no public access to it.

The plateau above the village is the former RAF Upper Heyford, now Heyford Park. You cannot see much of it from this walk, but the airbase's story is worth reading before you come, and the heritage centre runs booked tours of the Cold War airbase on most Sundays from March to November.

Lower Heyford's square

The way home runs down Freehold Street, where the council's leaflet picks out White Horse Cottage, a seventeenth-century house that was once an inn, a listed red telephone kiosk, and Paine's Cottage, Forge House, Town House and College Farm House. A corn market was started in Market Square in 1845, but the Victoria County History says regular markets had stopped by 1887. The Bell on its corner is a late seventeenth or early eighteenth-century house with a tall narrow window at the back, but the pub closed in April 2025, and we found no news of it reopening.

Past the square, the manor house was rebuilt in 1669 and keeps a datestone, and St Mary's church beside it, first dedicated in the mid eleventh century, is listed Grade II*. Our Heyfords guide has more on both villages, Heyford Bridge and Rousham across the river.

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What walkers should know before setting out

The length first. The council's guide gives 4.9km and its older leaflet 3.5km, but the towpath alone is 2.2km, and our line through the same places measures 5.5km. Plan on 3.4 miles. Taking the guide's loop up the High Street adds about 1km.

The towpath is narrow and badly eroded in places, the council's guide says (August 2024), with low branches, though the Canal & River Trust improved one stretch in 2023. The field below Upper Heyford church often has livestock in it, the ground is uneven and there is a broad ditch at the far gate. The older leaflet mentions stiles near the water treatment works; the 2024 guide describes only gates and kissing gates there, so expect either until we have walked it. Freehold Street has a double blind bend, and the guide asks walkers to keep to the left side of the road round the second.

The valley floods. The council's leaflet says sections of the valley bottom tend to flood in winter and asks walkers to turn back if conditions are too wet. Its longer walk to Rousham's Eyecatcher from the same station carried a notice in October 2024 that flooding had made it impassable at one point, and suggested this loop instead, which stays on the towpath and the fields on the east side of the canal.

Getting there, parking and food

Come by train if you can: Great Western Railway trains between Banbury and Oxford call at Heyford, and the walk starts on the platform. The station car park has 28 spaces, and we found no other public car park in Lower Heyford. Thames Travel's 25 and 25A from Bicester run through Heyford Park to Upper Heyford, which is on the route, Monday to Saturday, but not to Lower Heyford or the station; Stagecoach runs the 25A on Sundays.

For food, Kizzies at Heyford Wharf, beside the station, is the nearest stop. Oxfordshire Narrowboats, whose wharf it is on, says it opens from 9am to 5pm daily, but an older notice on the same page says it is closed, so check before you rely on it (November 2026). The Barley Mow in Upper Heyford is a short way off the High Street loop, but we found no website for it, so ring before you rely on it.

Other walks nearby

North Aston and Somerton Mill is the council's next loop up the valley, crossing the Cherwell on an old causeway and coming back along the same canal. The Oxford Canal from Banbury to Cropredy is the towpath further north. Across the river, Rousham's garden is a short walk over Heyford Bridge, and Steeple Aston is the next village south-west.