Category Archives: Walking the Ridgeway

Walking the Ridgeway – Britain’s oldest road

Degree days 2023

Posted on by heidi

Throughout the year, degree days for Oxford University are held at The Sheldonian Theatre.  These are always wonderful occasions and I love to see the students celebrating and looking very dapper in their academic dress.  It does however mean that Oxford is even busier than usual.  Colleges will be closed.  If your tour should fa ll on a degree day then please allow extra time to travel into Oxford and be prepared for crowds and busy lunch venues!

2023 confirmed degree days are as follows (others can be added at any time).

Saturday 25th February (10.30 and 13.30)

Saturday 4th March (10.30 and 13.30)

Saturday 6th May (10.30, 13.30 and 16.15)

Saturday 13th May (10.30, 13.30 and 16.15)

Saturday 20th May (10.30, 13.30 and 16.15)

Saturday 15th July (10.30 and 13.30)

Tuesday 25th July (10.30 and 13.30)

Friday 28th July (10.30 and 13.30)

Saturday 29th July (10.30, 13.30 and 16.15)

Saturday 5th August (10.30, 13.30 and 16.15)

Friday 22nd September (10.30 and 13.30)

Saturday 23rd September (10.30, 13.30 and 16.15)

Friday 3rd November (10.30 and 13.30)

Saturday 4th November (10.30 and 13.30)

Saturday 11th November (10.30 and 13.30)

 

Morse, Lewis, Endeavour and Oxford – A Celebration event on Oxford on Saturday 4th March

Posted on by heidi

On Saturday 4th March, there will be a celebration in Oxford to mark the end of the programmes.

Endeavour Season 9 will air in the UK on 26th February (TBC) and will run for three episode but this will take is to the end of the road.

Tickets are available on Universe and Abigail Thaw (Dorothea Frazil) plus Anton Lesser (Bright) will be attending.  Spaces are now limited.

Walking Tours of Oxford are running tours on the day but the 2pm tours are now sold out.  We have added a 11am tour which is currently still available (click on BOOK NOW).  This 11am tour will finish at or close to a Morse pub for lunch.  We then suggest an individual visit to a college in the afternoon and suggestions will be given on the day by your tour guide.

Walking Britain’s oldest road!

Posted on by heidi

What does a morse / Lewis and endeavour walking tour guide do in months of enforced lockdown?

A) rewatch many of the episodes
B) write a book on the subject (more about this in the coming weeks)
C) walk Britain’s oldest road – The Ridgeway

‘Follow the acorn’ A tour guides walk along the ridgeway in times of covid.

I survived lockdown 1, from March 2020 when all freedom was curtailed, like many, enjoying my garden and sunlounger but as night fell, I rewatched many of the episodes – driving my family nuts!

I then returned to my tours June-October with renewed knowledge and enthusiasm!

Then in November, another brief lockdown with freedom gained in December until 26th December in Oxfordshire.

With short cold days, the garden was no longer on option so my husband, Jonathan and myself donned our walking boats and took to hiking.

We live in the Oxfordshire village of Chinnor, right on the ridgeway and although we had ventured on short strolls over the 20 years we have lived here and often with our young children in days gone by, here was a real opportunity to ‘do properly’.

That winter we discovered many new paths and hikes. We were hooked and with each step, there was a determination to go ‘a little further’. Our 21st wedding anniversary was celebrated with a walk and cup of tea, following the Ridgeway from Princes Risborough back to Chinnor. By March 2021 we had reached our peak when we completed 28.82 kms from Chinnor to Watlington and beyond round trip.

Freedom again and it was time to concentrate on salvaging the business and building up the depleted coffers but those stunning walks along the ridgeway were never far from our minds.

By late summer 2021, we began again and this accumulated with a 2 day / 1 night section that we had not previously done – the start! From Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshire to Wendover.

Off we go!

The date was Sunday 3rd October and we drove our older car to Ivinghoe Beacon where there is a free national trust car park. Theoretically the ridgeway starts back from this point, at the beacon and with stunning views over the rolling hills. Not ones to do a half job, we hiked up. It was a beautiful day but the wind was blowing ferociously at the top. We took our photos and were in unison about the stunning scenery before setting off ‘properly’.

The first section here is open and again offering the most beautiful views. We met fellow hikers who were on a day trip from London and had got the train to Tring to do a circular route. We reached the top of a hill with views looking down over a quarry and was tempted with a ‘tea and biscuit stop’ but opted to continue as still so breezy. This was a slight mistake as we then ventured into ‘Grims ditch’ which, whilst lovely, and giving you a real sense of the path travellers have trod for over 5.000 years, it did not offer a scenic stop for our rest so we continued until we found a field and sat enjoying the later afternoon sunshine. It was a short push from here to Wendover, I think the only town that the ridgeway truly passes through. As soon as we reached Wendover, there was our hotel – central and very welcoming after 21.54 km, 4.5 hours and 323m elevation gain.

I had dithered as to where to stay in Wendover as, like is so often the case, review were mixed. I had contemplated a room in a private house through Airbnb but in the end opted for The Bel and Dragon (yes – that is correct – only one l). We booked direct – always the best way and I wish everyone would consider this – booking through on-line portals on OTA’s means that the price is increased for everyone as they take a commission! I was not disappointed in my choice at all. The hotel had recently undergone a refurbishment and we were shown to our double en-suite bedroom on the ground floor, just across from the main pub. It get’s a little confusing as the hotel is called The Bel and Dragon but the pub is The Red Lion. We dumped our packs and heading back to the pub for a well earned pint and before lingering in a hot bubbly bath. Extra kudos must go to the hotel for providing an abundance of toiletries including bubble bath which, I feel, is a must after a long hike.

That evening, ideally we would have eaten at the pub on-site but they had run out of roasts and I found the remaining menu a little limited for my taste. So we pulled our boots back on and headed to The George and Dragon, for a delicious Thai treat. There seems to be lots of dragons in Wendover!

Where we stayed and where we ate

The Bel and Dragon, Wendover

https://www.georgeanddragonwendover.com

Part 2 – Wendover back to Chinnor

FREE Freedom tours!

Posted on by heidi

It is finally here … ‘Freedom Day 2021’! The day that we can return to meeting friends and family outside – albeit within the rule of 6.

Qualified guides can’t wait to meet you and show you Oxford! ©philknight @ walkingtoursofoxford

To celebrate our return to the world of guiding, we are delighted to be offering two free tours of Oxford:-

Friday 2nd April (Good Friday)
Friday 9th April

Both tours will start at 11am from Christ Church memorial gardens which is directly opposite Cafe Loco on St Aldates.

There is no better time to visit Oxford with the streets quieter then they have been in decades and with shops still closed on the above two dates, travel into Oxford should be easy.

Your fully qualified guide will enthral and delight you with the history of Oxford and stories of those that have studied here. We will see many of the iconic sites and the context of these buildings to the university.

Each tour is uniquue, we do not follow a script and simply ‘go with the flow’ on the day and tune into interests.

Christ Church
©walkingtoursofoxford

We are covid secure as the tour will be completely outside and social distancing will be encouraged throughout.

Tours are strictly limited to 6 per guide and a maximum of two per household.

We can’t wait to be back and we look forward to showing you Oxford!

Tomorrow is a good day!

Heidi and Elizabeth x

Please click on the booking link below which will take you to Eventbrite to book your tickets

2nd April
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/walking-tours-of-oxford-12014463629

9th April
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/walking-tours-of-oxford-12014463629

Endeavour Series 8 Filming – March 2021

Posted on by heidi

All photo’s ©walkingtoursofoxford. Please do not share individually but do share link to post for everyone to see!

In ‘Normal’ times, we would have already been treated to series 8 of Endeavour. We last saw our hero on TV screens in “Zenana” back on 23rd February 2020 and season 8 was confirmed at that time. Then Covid hit and England entered a full national lockdown on 23rd March 2020, exactly one month after that last episode airing on ITV filming, along with our entire way of life stopped.

Endeavour filming season 8 15/3/2021 Exeter College, Oxford. ©walkingtoursofoxford
Shaun Evans

Summer came and went and with that we enjoyed some normality and our Morse / Lewis and Endeavour tours resumed which continued to run through August / September and October before Lockdown 2 in November. It was a busy 3 months with most tours going out full. ‘Staycations’ became popular and as many had rewatched the programmes during those challenging ‘Stay at home’ months, we had visitors from all corners of the United Kingdom. The guides here at “Walking Tours of Oxford” also used those lockdown months to rewatch episodes; entire seasons – a love of all three programmes was reignited and we had time to reconnect and remember all those little moments and connections that run so deep.

As we now look towards a release from lockdown 3, we will be returning with our tours on 17th May (subject to government guidelines). It might be possible to operate some private tours prior to this date.

Tours will be smaller than before and college entry may not be possible but, in some ways, this has given us the freedom to explore the street scenes further and many of the colleges are still seen and talked about, albeit from the outside. We have invested is a state-of-the-art sound system, no other tour company offers this in Oxford, and we believe it enhances the tour experience as it means everyone can hear no matter how busy Oxford gets. Moreover, it allows for complete ‘social distancing’ between your individual group and others on the tour. Each person on our public tours is provided, at the time of the tour and free of charge, with a small headset and earphones. However, we do encourage our guests to bring their own earphones which can be used with the headsets. All equipment has been thoroughly sanitised between each use.

It was uplifting to see that filming had resumed on Mothering Sunday – 14th March 2021. Two guides made it in that day and met Shaun and the crew and were lucky to get some photos which we are sharing below. It was a little surreal to see the crew and cast all masked up in-between takes. Filming continued inside Exeter College, which has a long association with the Morse universe on Monday 15th March. Heidi, owner of Walking Tours of Oxford was able to witness some of the filming that day and a selection is here for you.

Tomorrow is a good day!

Come and join us to see just where all this took place along with other episodes of Endeavour Morse and Lewis. See the locations and hear the stories – all our guides are fully qualified – members of The Institute of Tourist Guiding and the Oxford Guild of Tour Guides.

Quote code NDVR8 at checkout for a 10% discount on our group Morse / Lewis and Endeavour Tours which is available for any tour date throughout 2021 but for bookings taken prior to 17th May. We anticipate that tours will get booked up so don’t delay and book today!

Filming on Merton Street, Oxford 14/3/2021. Endeavour Season 8. ©walkingtoursofoxford Jane Mead
Endeavour season 8 filming 14/3/2021. Merton Street, Oxford. ©walkingtoursofoxford Christine Bainbridge
Endeavour Filming season 8 15/3/2021. Exeter College, Oxford ©walkingtoursofoxford
Endeavour Filming season 8 15/3/2021. Exeter College, Oxford ©walkingtoursofoxford
Shaun Evans ‘getting ready for take’
Shaun Evans – filming in times of Covid. March 14th 2021. ©walkingtoursofoxford Christine Bainbridge

Sports at Oxford

Posted on by heidi

Sport at Oxford

Remarkably, despite a full-time focus on study, Oxford students still find lots of time to play.

Pick any early morning (in normal times) and you will find them rowing down the river, jogging along the towpath, speeding round the Iffley Road track, scaling the climbing wall or ploughing up and down the fantastic Rosenblatt Swimming Pool.

In fact, Oxford students take part in at least 57(!) sports for which they can win ‘Blues’ or ‘Half-Blues’ and the right to wear a dark blue Oxford University Blazer (or blue and white-striped zebra-wise in the case of a Half-Blue) emblazoned with the crest of the appropriate sports club.

Ballroom dancing is a one of the many sports at Oxford

No, Quidditch is not a blues sport, but if you do anything from American Football to Yachting via Clay Pigeon Shooting, Croquet, Powerlifting and Ultimate Frisbee, there’s a team and a competition for you to take part in.

Sport at Oxford University really came into its own in the 19th century. Before that young men went hunting nearby or played Real Tennis. Merton College still has its Real Tennis court, with two professional coaches, though the court at Oriel College is no longer extant. A pity, as that was the court where Charles I was interrupted by a trumpeter come to sue for peace in 1642 (no, the peace talks failed, but Parliament did agree to send the King cloth for a new tennis suit).

The first Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race was held in 1829, though it was in Henley rather than London. Later onlookers used to watch races from barges with distinctive round windows – you can still find one hidden near Donnington Bridge. Today there are college boathouses all along the river Thames at a short distance from Folly Bridge and rowing’s popularity is undiminished. There are two major competitions held in Oxford every year– Torpids in the sleepy spring and Eights in the energetic summer rowed over several days.

Each college chalks their accomplishments on the walls of the quads

Cricket too has always been very popular and some great names have honed their skills on the playing fields of Oxford – CB Fry, Colin Cowdrey, the Nawab of Pataudi, Imran Khan and Jamie Dalrymple to name but a few.

We also shouldn’t forget that the game of Rugby was invented by an Oxford man (though fortunately he went to Rugby school beforehand, or presumably ‘Oxford’ would be a game as well as a University). His name was William Webb Ellis and one day he decided to revolutionise football (or break the rules, depending how you look at it) and pick up the ball. You can see him immortalised in stone above the High Street entrance to Brasenose college, head down, arm round a ball.

‘A healthy mind in a healthy body!’ was the rallying cry of the 19th century public schools and once at Oxford, the ‘hearties’ looked down on the ‘aesthetes’. However, it all got a bit out of hand when sport seemed to be many young men’s sole reason for coming to Oxford.
The dons started to protest. Neville Coghill at Exeter commented in 1938 that ‘great athletes are seldom great scholars’ and a Pembroke don balked at the ‘conflict of time, energy and interest’ which led to some students ‘skimping study’. On the other hand, A.L. P Norrington, President of Trinity College, was concerned at the ‘tendency of undergraduates to mooch in the afternoon instead of taking exercise’.

In fact, sport was a requirement for a Rhodes Scholar, who couldn’t merely be a ‘bookworm’ and was expected to be an enthusiastic and capable participant in ‘manly sports’. With the belated acceptance of women scholars, the adjective has been deleted, however, it is true that Rhodes Scholars have contributed hugely to Oxford’s sporting successes.
It is also true that sports don’t seem to have interfered too much with the spectacular success of certain individuals. Take Sir Roger Bannister, who not only manage to run the very first sub-four-minute mile (on our Iffley Road track) but also became an outstanding neurologist and eventually Master of Pembroke College.

So what’s the attitude of today’s University to sport? The Oxford University Sport website tells us ‘A growing body of research is highlighting the many benefits that getting active has, from mental health, through to life expectancy and even academic performance. While Oxford has a truly world class pedigree when it comes to sport, we want to spread the simple message that sport really is for everyone.’

And the Pro Vice-Chancellor, Martin Williams, gives a balanced yet positive appraisal: “There is always a way to balance sports with studying, and we actively encourage students to get active while they are here.”

It was at The Iffley Road Track that Roger Bannister run the first sub-four minute mile.

So, there’s no excuse for mooching around!

Walking Tours of Oxford are a great way to exercise and if you are really keen on sport, we can also show you (from a distance) some of our amazing sporting facilities and tell you more about its history.

 © Victoria Bentata 2020 for Walking Tours of Oxford

The Pitt Rivers Museum

Posted on by heidi

The Pitt Rivers Museum by Victoria Bentata

Hidden away at the back of the Oxford Museum of Natural History, the Pitt Rivers Museum is extraordinary and not to be missed. Entering it for the first time is like discovering Aladdin’s cave.

It consists of a huge ground floor room with two galleries laden with objects. Yet, despite its size, it is strangely intimate, like an eccentric uncle’s attic. This is partly because of the sheer amount of ‘stuff’ squeezed into the available space, but also because of its extraordinary variety. From the massive Canadian totem pole to the tiniest rings and charms, from rifles to masks, mummies and glass surgical instruments, everything is unexpected and surprising.

The high ceiling allows space to breathe, but there is little room to move without encountering an exhibition case. And each case is so crammed with fascinating objects that you can spend an hour just looking at its contents and deciphering the labels. These are often hand-written and have been here since the early years after the Museum was opened in 1884.

The Natural History Museum next door displays animals, insects and minerals. In contrast, the Pitt Rivers Museum is an ethnographic museum and all its artefacts were made and/or used by human beings.

In the museum they are grouped by type (e.g. textiles, weapons, baskets, dead enemies…) and their original function was to demonstrate progress. Pitt Rivers described what he saw as the journey from simple to ‘civilized’ in an essay on ‘Cultural Evolution’, something in which the Victorians implicitly believed. Of course, in the race to progress they were in pole position.

General Pitt Rivers himself was originally a Grenadier Guard who was assigned in 1850 to test a new rifle, the Minié. As a result, he developed a passionate interest in the historical development of firearms. This in turn led to a fascination with history and archaeology and to collecting the material objects you can see today.

Thanks to the attention to detail and passion of the museum’s first curator, Henry Balfour and the brilliant work of anthropologist Beatrice Blackwood, who was not only an adventurer but a meticulous cataloguer, the Pitt Rivers became the exciting yet academically robust museum it is today.

To visit the museum virtually go to: Click here We recommend a virtual tour first and then a closer look at whatever interests you. They have lots of home-schooling resources, perfect for lockdown projects.

We recommend a trip to the Pitt Rivers Museum as part of a day spent in Oxford, ideally after a Walking tour with Walking Tours of Oxford. Looking forward to welcoming you when times change.

 © Victoria Bentata 2020 for Walking Tours of Oxford

is surely one of the most extraordinary museums in the world.

VE Day celebrations in the UK

Posted on by heidi

8th May 2020

On Friday 8th May, we celebrated VE Day here in the UK and I imagine all over Europe. It marked 75 years when World War 2 finally came to an end in Europe. It was to be another 3 months before the world was at peace.

In usual times, the celebrations would have involved large gatherings and parties all across the land. Here is my hometown, there was a Tea Dance planned. Of course, due to the Coronovirus pandemic, all events had to be cancelled.

Nonetheless, the British people still found a way to mark the occassion. We decorated our houses with anything we could find in red, white and blue. Initially I did not have any bunting so my talented daughter threw together some homemade bunting from off cuts.

We listend, not as in days gone by, on the wireless but with the benefit of being able to see on television, the address made all those years ago by Sir Winston Churchill. The birthplace of Churchill is located just 30 mins outside of Oxford near Woodstock – Blenheim palace which is the only non-royal, non-episcopal country house in England to hold the title of palace! It makes a great day out from Oxford and more details can be found here

Located nearby you can also visit the grave of Sir Winston Churchill in the graveyard of St Martin’s Church, Blandon. For more details See here

We then listened to the Queen speech before taking to our front gardens and driveways for a traditional afternoon tea!

Traditional afternoon tea

In my household, we hooked up with my sisters and parents via Zoom so that we could enjoy together whilst being apart.

After dinner and some family games, we watched more on television including listening to ‘We’ll Meet again’. The words more poignant than ever and I for one, cannot wait ‘to meet again’.

Our local pub might be closed but was still decorated!

We hope that tours will be up and running by September and look forward to welcoming you to Oxford. Stay safe.

Award Winning Tours 2020

Posted on by heidi

Award winning Tours

Wow! Once again, Walking Tours of Oxford, is thrilled to announce that we have won the prestigious ‘Gold Service Award’ from Feefo. Throughout 2019, my team has worked tirelessly to ensure that high standards are met on all of our tours. This is a phenomenal achievement. Each guide has been carefully selected to ensure the very best experience adhere to the guiding etiquette in Oxford. All guides are fully qualified – members of The Institute of Tourist Guiding and The Oxford Guild of Tour Guides. This means we have undergone an intense 9-month training course and sat at least 4 exams at the end of that period. We are exceptionally grateful to all clients that choose Walking Tours of Oxford and review on Feefo. In addition, we have also been awarded ‘The Oxfordshire Prestige award’ which is a real honour and speaks volumes about the quality of tours offered by Walking Tours of Oxford. Everyone is special to us. Thank you. Heidi and team