Churches, hill forts, commons, viewpoints and rivers, with the walks that pass them and the places to stay and eat nearby.
47 sights
Sight · Historic building · Adderbury
A private house in Adderbury and what is left of a mansion of the Earls of Rochester and the Dukes of Argyll and Buccleuch. Most of it was pulled down in 1808, and it was enlarged again after 1891. Grade II and not open. Its old water is now the public Adderbury Lakes.
Sight · Monument · Bicester
The buried site of Oxfordshire's largest Roman town, south-west of Bicester, and of the legionary fortress before it, dated by its gate timbers to AD 44/45. A scheduled monument under private farmland, with nothing standing above ground.
Sight · Hill fort or barrow · Chipping Warden
The low bank of a probable Iron Age enclosure, and the ridge and furrow around it, on a hill south-west of Chipping Warden. A scheduled monument on private farmland, mostly ploughed, seen from public footpaths nearby.
Sight · Historic building · Aynho
A canal wharf of 1788 on the Oxford Canal below Aynho, with a warehouse whose roof hangs over the water and a listed stone bridge, and a walk north to the odd diamond-shaped Weir Lock where the Cherwell crosses the canal.
Sight · Wood · Badby
An ancient bluebell wood at Badby, Northamptonshire, on the Fawsley estate: woodland for over 700 years, a deer park from 1246 and now an SSSI. Free and private, on permissive paths. Bluebells usually peak from late April into early May, and parking is for about 12 cars.
Sight · Monument · Banbury
The cross of the nursery rhyme stands at the top of Banbury High Street, but it is a Victorian monument of 1858 to 1859, put up about 250 years after the town's medieval crosses were pulled down. Grade II*, free and seen from the street at any time.
Sight · Historic building · Banbury
The square at the centre of Banbury, where a Thursday market has run since before 1155. The charter market is on every Thursday and Saturday, 9am to 4pm (Cherwell District Council, 2026), among timber-framed houses of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Sight · Historic building · Bicester
The technical site of RAF Bicester, which Historic England calls the best preserved of the bomber bases built in the RAF's expansion from 1923, now home to firms restoring historic cars. Its listed hangars and workshops open to the public on event days such as the Scrambles.
Sight · Historic building · Bicester
The old market place at the centre of Bicester, where the town's market was granted in 1239, lined with listed houses such as No. 47 of 1698 with its oval-windowed tower. The Friday market is on Sheep Street beside it, and the square is due to be remade.
Sight · Historic building · Bicester
An open-air designer outlet on the south side of Bicester, with more than 150 boutiques on pedestrian streets, open seven days a week since 1995. It has its own station, with trains from London Marylebone and Oxford, and the old town is a short walk away.
Sight · Nature reserve · Bicester
A local nature reserve of 8.4 hectares on the north side of Bicester: meadow, young woodland, hedges and scrub along the little River Bure, with a pond that holds great crested newts. Free, small and local, a ten-minute walk from the town centre.
Sight · Bridge · Cropredy
The bridge over the River Cherwell at Cropredy, north of Banbury, where a royalist army beat Sir William Waller on 29 June 1644. This is a 1937 rebuild faced in old Hornton stone, with an inscription on its south side. Free to see at any time.
Sight · Monument · Cropredy
The registered battlefield of 29 June 1644, where Charles I's army beat Sir William Waller's across the Cherwell meadows at Cropredy. Farmland now, seen from the bridge, public footpaths and the Battlefields Trust's trail.
Sight · Castle or ruin · Deddington
Grassy ramparts up to 15m high are what is left of Deddington's Norman castle, which belonged to William the Conqueror's half-brother. Now the village park and sports field, free in daylight, with English Heritage caring for the inner bailey. Earthworks only.
Sight · Historic building
A ruined Gothic arch between two thin turrets, built about 1750 as a sham ruin to Sanderson Miller's design for the Wroxton Abbey estate. Grade II*, in fields near Drayton, and reached by a public footpath from Wroxton.
Sight · Viewpoint · Edgehill and Radway
The long view from the top of Edge Hill, north-west of Banbury, across the plain where the Battle of Edgehill was fought in 1642. There is no signed viewpoint: the ridge road, the footpaths and the garden of a 1740s sham castle are how you see it.
Sight · Monument · Edgehill and Radway
The first pitched battle of the English Civil War was fought below Edge Hill on 23 October 1642. Most of the field is now closed Ministry of Defence land, so you see it from the ridge and from a roadside memorial stone. Registered by Historic England.
Sight · Monument · Banbury
A bronze of the rhyme's fine lady on her white horse, on a Hornton stone plinth where South Bar meets West Bar in Banbury. The people of the town paid for it, and the Princess Royal unveiled it in 2005. Free to see at any time.
Sight · Common or park · Bicester
Bicester's town park: about 9 acres of lawns, specimen trees and formal beds round Garth House, a Victorian hunting lodge given to the town in 1946. It has the 1732 bell of the old Town Hall, a bandstand, a café and play areas, a few minutes from Market Square.
Sight · Common or park · Banbury
A patch of old rough pasture off the Broughton Road on the edge of Banbury, called Giant's Cave and said by legend to hide a tunnel to Broughton Castle. One account calls it a late medieval quarry. It is free, and a stop on Cherwell's Banbury Fringe walk.
Sight · Historic building · Hanwell
The surviving tower and range of a Tudor brick courtyard house built for the Cope family at Hanwell, north of Banbury. Grade II*, diapered in red and blue brick, and private: the grounds open on a few event days, such as the February snowdrop weekend.
Sight · River · Banbury
The Oxford Canal through the middle of Banbury, from the lock and Tooley's Boatyard, a scheduled monument, past the museum to Spiceball Park, with a towpath north to Cropredy. Free, open always, and a few minutes from the station.
Sight · Common or park · Banbury
Banbury's town centre park, opened in 1919 to mark the peace, with an aviary of budgies and cockatiels, a walled garden, rose garden, bowling green, tennis, a play area and a café. Free, and run by the town council.
Sight · Monument · Upper and Lower Heyford
The Cold War shelters, nuclear bomb store and command centre of RAF Upper Heyford, scheduled in 2006 and seen on guided tours from the airbase's heritage centre at Heyford Park, which opens free three days a week.
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