Julian Herzog (Website), CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Oxford
The university city at the eastern end of the Cotswold Line, where the S3 leaves the station for Woodstock and Blenheim about every hour and the X52 runs the A40 to Witney and Burford. The hills begin about 20 miles west; the colleges are the day before them.
- Nearest station
- Oxford (OX1 1HS), Cotswold Line to Charlbury, Kingham and Moreton (33 minutes); the S3 to Woodstock from outside
- Parking
- Pear Tree park and ride (OX2 8JD), by the A34 and A40: £3 for up to five people and 16 hours, to 31 March 2027; 12 minutes in on the 300 bus
- Best time
- Term outside exams; dawn on 1 May for May Morning; spring to autumn at Blenheim
- When it's busy
- The Christmas lights at Blenheim (13 November 2026 to 3 January 2027) and fine Saturdays in July and August
About Oxford
Oxford is the eastern gateway to the Cotswolds, the city the Cotswold Line leaves on its way to Charlbury, Kingham and Moreton-in-Marsh, and the terminus of the buses that run out along the A44 and the A40 to Woodstock, Witney and Burford. The hills themselves begin about 20 miles (32km) to the west, past Witney, where the Windrush valley narrows at Burford. Between the city and them is flat clay country with Blenheim Palace in the middle of it.
Why come through here
The station on Park End Street is a short walk from the centre, and it is where the Cotswold Line proper begins: GWR trains to Hanborough, Charlbury, Kingham and Moreton-in-Marsh take about 33 minutes to Moreton, with 22 trains on a weekday and 15 on a Sunday, hourly from 8.47am. From outside the station Stagecoach's S3 leaves for Woodstock, where the stop is outside the gate of Blenheim Palace, about 36 minutes, and on to Chipping Norton in about an hour. Monday to Saturday it leaves at 33 minutes past the hour until 6.33pm, then at 8.03pm and 10.03pm; on Sundays at three minutes past from 8.03am to 11.03pm. Together the S3 and S7 run about four times an hour from the city centre to Woodstock, and the S7 goes on by Bladon and Hanborough station to Witney, about every half hour in the day. Pulhams' X52 leaves Gloucester Green bus station Monday to Saturday at 8.50am, 10.50am, 12.50pm, 2.50pm and 5.10pm for Witney, Burford (about an hour, to the A40 layby at the top of the town), Northleach and Cheltenham. On Sundays it runs every two hours from May to September and twice the rest of the year (10.50am and 4.50pm from Oxford). The times are on the buses page.
Do not drive into Oxford. Since 28 September 2026 traffic filters on six roads have replaced the £5 congestion charge: cars without a permit may not pass them, four of them every day from 7am to 7pm, and there is no longer a charge to pay on the day. The five park and ride sites round the ring road are the city's answer: Pear Tree (OX2 8JD), at the top of the Woodstock Road by the A34 and A40, sells a £3 park and bus ticket for one car and up to five people, valid for 16 hours, on the 300 bus 12 minutes into the centre (to 31 March 2027). Parking alone is free for the first hour and £2.50 for up to 16 hours, Blue Badge holders free. For the Cotswolds by car, the A40 west by Witney and Burford and the A44 north by Woodstock and Chipping Norton both start from the ring road. Getting here has the drive times.
A day in the city
The centre is small enough to walk in a morning. From the station, Hythe Bridge Street leads to the Ashmolean on Beaumont Street, the university's museum of art and archaeology, open every day from 10am to 5pm (last entry 4.45pm) and free. Broad Street has the Sheldonian Theatre and the Bodleian Library, whose fifteenth-century Divinity School and the Radcliffe Camera are seen on guided tours, then Radcliffe Square, the High Street and Christ Church, the college with the cathedral and the hall. Its tickets and times are on its own site. The Botanic Garden by Magdalen Bridge and the river meadows beyond it are the quiet end of a day. Experience Oxfordshire (opens in a new tab) is the official guide to the city's colleges, museums and tours, and this page does not try to be one.
Into the Cotswolds from here
The day loop that works without a car is Blenheim. Ride the S3 to Woodstock, walk through the gate into Blenheim Palace, Vanbrugh's house for the Duke of Marlborough and Churchill's birthplace, with Capability Brown's park and the lake open for walks from under a mile by the lake to the 4.6-mile park perimeter, about two hours, and Woodstock's own streets outside the wall. In 2026 the palace's rooms open from 10.30am to 4.45pm and the gardens from 10am, and a day ticket becomes a year's pass if you Gift Aid it. From the gate it is about ten minutes' walk through the park to the palace. Come back on the S3, or carry on to Chipping Norton and the Rollright Stones by taxi.
By car, the hills begin where the A40 drops into Burford, 20 miles (32km) out: the High Street down to the Windrush, then Swinbrook and the river villages to Minster Lovell Hall on the way home, or on over the A40 to Northleach and the Fosse Way. The A44 route runs Woodstock, Chipping Norton, Moreton-in-Marsh and Stow-on-the-Wold, about 50 minutes to Stow on a clear road. Kingham and Daylesford are a few miles off it. Without a car, the X52 reaches Burford in an hour and the train reaches Kingham in about 25 minutes, for the walk to Bledington.
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When to come
Oxford's best-known crowd is the university's: on 1 May people gather by Magdalen Bridge and up the High Street at dawn, about 18,500 of them in 2026 by the city council's count, to hear the college choir sing the Hymnus Eucharisticus from the top of the Great Tower at 6am, a custom the college traces back some 500 years. Blenheim's Christmas lights run from 13 November 2026 to 3 January 2027 on timed tickets with limited capacity, so book. For the Cotswold buses the summer Sunday X52 is the one date to know: it runs every two hours from the first Sunday in May to the last in September, and only twice on other Sundays.
Last verified 28 October 2026 by our editors
Part of
The Oxfordshire Cotswolds
The Windrush and Evenlode valleys on the Oxfordshire side of the hills: Burford's High Street, Kingham on the railway, Witney's blankets and Woodstock at Blenheim's gates.
Walks in and around Oxford
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Woodstock town walk
Walk · Starts in Woodstock · Circular
A 1.1-mile (1.7km) easy heritage loop round Woodstock from the stocks in Park Street to Hawksmoor's Woodstock Gate into Blenheim, along the coaching inns of Oxford Street and Market Street to the Town Hall and the Hensington Gate, and back through the churchyard.
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Combe and Blenheim Park
Walk · Starts in Woodstock · 3 hrs · Circular
A 6.7-mile (10.8km) circular walk from Combe, moderate and about three hours: over stiled fields to East End, into Blenheim Park, mostly on its public footpaths, past Fair Rosamund's Well and the lake, north to the park wall and back down the western edge to Combe's green.
Getting to Oxford
- By train
- Oxford (OX1 1HS) is about an hour from London Paddington and about 33 minutes from Moreton-in-Marsh on the Cotswold Line, 22 trains on a weekday and 15, hourly, on a Sunday.
- By bus
- S3 from the station to Blenheim about hourly every day; S7 to Woodstock, Hanborough and Witney; X52 from Gloucester Green to Burford and Cheltenham, Monday to Saturday and some Sundays.
- By car
- The A40 west to Burford (20 miles / 32km) and the A44 north to Stow (30 miles / 48km, about 50 minutes). Traffic filters on six city roads bar cars without a permit (since 28 September 2026).
- Parking
- Pear Tree park and ride (OX2 8JD): £3 park and bus for up to five people, 16 hours, to 31 March 2027; the 300 bus 12 minutes to the centre. Four other sites ring the city.
| Woodstock | 10.6 mi |
|---|---|
| Witney | 13 mi |
| Burford | 19.9 mi |
| Chipping Norton | 21.7 mi |
| Kingham | 26.7 mi |
| Stow-on-the-Wold | 29.8 mi |
Places near Oxford
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WoodstockA small town of stone houses at the gates of Blenheim Palace, Churchill's birthplace and a World Heritage Site, with a free county museum and two old sundials.
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WitneyThe blanket town on the Windrush, just outside the National Landscape, with a Butter Cross, a long Church Green and Cogges manor farm, and free parking.
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BurfordA wool and coaching town whose High Street runs downhill to a medieval bridge over the Windrush, with a Grade I church where the Levellers were held in 1649.
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KinghamAn Oxfordshire village in the Evenlode valley with a station on the line from London, two dining pubs, and Daylesford's farm shop two miles down the road.