Churches, hill forts, commons, viewpoints and rivers, with the walks that pass them and the places to stay and eat nearby.
47 sights
Sight · Hill fort or barrow · Aynho
An Iron Age hillfort with double ramparts on the plateau above the Cherwell near Aynho and Charlton, burnt in the fourth century BC and reused by the Romans. Scheduled, under pasture, on private land; a bridleway passes close by.
Sight · Hill fort or barrow
Three prehistoric monuments on the Oxfordshire and Warwickshire border, built over more than 2,000 years: the Whispering Knights, the King's Men circle and the King Stone, with a legend of a king and a witch to go with them. Open daily; adults £2.
Sight · Historic building · Upper and Lower Heyford
A house of about 1635 above the Cherwell near the Heyfords, and round it William Kent's landscape garden of 1737 to 1741, still much as he left it. The garden opens every day; no children under 15, no dogs, no tea room.
Sight · Common or park · Banbury
Banbury's largest park, 26 acres split by the River Cherwell with the Oxford Canal along one edge: play area and skate ramps on the town side, woodland walks and nature trails across the wooden bridges. Free, with free parking on Grimsbury Green.
Sight · Church · Bicester
Bicester's Grade I parish church, grown from a Norman church with a central tower into the big Perpendicular church of today. Inside are brasses from about 1500, Georgian monuments by Scheemakers, Wilton and Westmacott, and a Morris & Co. window of 1866.
Sight · Church · Sulgrave
Sulgrave's Grade II* church, where George Washington's ancestor Lawrence Washington is buried before the family pew under its painted Washington arms. A west doorway perhaps Saxon, and a Tudor porch. No regular opening times.
Sight · Church · Adderbury
Adderbury's Grade I church, with a stone spire, a frieze of medieval musicians and grotesques round its aisles, and a chancel built by Richard Winchcombe for New College, Oxford. Open daily and free to look round.
Sight · Church · Badby
Badby's Grade II* ironstone church on the hill above the greens, with a tower rebuilt after the old one fell in 1705, glass with the arms of Evesham Abbey, and the start of the Knightley Way opposite. Open every day, 10am to 4pm.
Sight · Church · Banbury
A round-towered classical church on Horse Fair in Banbury, built after the medieval church was brought down, in part with gunpowder. Grade I, by S. P. Cockerell. Open most mornings.
Sight · Church · Bloxham
Bloxham's Grade I church, with a fourteenth-century tower and spire of about 60m by the county history, a carved west doorway, the Milcombe Chapel and Morris & Co glass. Open every day for visitors, says the church.
Sight · Church · Broughton
The Grade I church in the park of Broughton Castle, built about 1300, with a rare stone chancel screen and the tombs and hatchments of the castle's owners from the fourteenth century on. Best seen on a castle open day.
Sight · Church · Moreton Pinkney
All that stands of the church of an Augustinian priory at Canons Ashby: a Grade I fragment with a thirteenth-century west front, a fourteenth-century tower and the Dryden family's monuments. Part of the National Trust's Canons Ashby.
Sight · Church · Fawsley
A Grade I church standing alone in Fawsley's park, its village long gone, filled with Knightley tombs, brasses and box pews, with Washington arms in a window. Open daily, says the church, across a field and a ha-ha.
Sight · Church · Kirtlington
Kirtlington's Grade II* church, with Norman arches under a Victorian tower that replaced one pulled down in 1770, late medieval paintings of St George and St Christopher, and the chapel of the Dashwoods of Kirtlington Park. Normally open in daylight.
Sight · Church · Kings Sutton
The Grade I church on The Square at Kings Sutton, whose crocketed spire of about 1370, given as about 60m, is the beauty in the old rhyme. Norman arcading, painted roof bosses and a Resurrection monument inside. Open in daylight.
Sight · Church · Hook Norton
Hook Norton's Grade I church, with a Norman font carved with Adam and Eve and signs of the zodiac, a Romanesque chancel and medieval wall paintings. In the middle of the village, open every day, says the benefice.
Sight · Historic building
A ten-bay medieval barn of ironstone, built for New College, Oxford, in about 1401, with its medieval timber roof. Grade I and a scheduled monument, six miles west of Banbury, and open free on summer Sunday afternoons.
Sight · Historic building · Tysoe
An eighteenth-century ironstone tower mill on Windmill Hill above Upper Tysoe, Grade II, which worked until lightning struck it in 1915 and still holds its machinery. Seen from a public footpath that passes beside it; not open inside.
Sight · Historic building · Bloxham
A small timber post mill on the high ground at Bloxham Grove, between Bloxham and Adderbury, built in 1865 by the engineer Henry Warriner as a memorial to all windmills. Grade II, with its machinery intact. On farmland, not open, and seen from a footpath nearby.
Sight · Wood · Whichford
An oak and hazel wood in a steep valley south of Whichford, a Site of Special Scientific Interest for its wet flushes and rare plants, with bluebells in May. The Macmillan Way and public bridleways run through it; other paths are private.
Sight · Historic building · Wroxton
A Jacobean house of about 1618 west of Banbury, on the site of a medieval priory and long the home of the Norths. Grade I. It is a college and closed to visitors. It passed to an alumni-led group in 2025 to 2026, and a public footpath crosses the grounds.
Sight · Historic building · Wroxton
A Gothic dovecote of 1745 by Sanderson Miller in the park of Wroxton Abbey, west of Banbury, built both to house pigeons and to look like a small castle from the house. Ironstone, polygonal and Grade II*. In the Abbey's park, so seen from a distance.
Sight · Monument · Wroxton
A tall ironstone obelisk in the fields south-east of Wroxton Abbey, west of Banbury, marking a visit by Frederick, Prince of Wales, in 1739. Part of the eighteenth-century landscape, and Grade II*. On farmland, beside a public footpath.
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