Walking Close to Woodstock and Blenheim Palace Guidebook

by Clive Brown
One of a range of 'no frills' local walking guide booklets which admirably achieve their objective of getting you out in the countryside amongst beautiful scenery on carefully chosen routes full of interest. The directions are clear and precise and the pencil drawn sketch maps are particularly attractive as well as practical.

Woodstock has been the site of royal palaces since the time of the Norman Kings but they are now thought to have been little more than hunting lodges. Henry II installed his mistress Rosamund de Clifford there in the 1160s. Much later in 1704 the Duke of Marlborough was given the Royal Manor of Woodstock by Queen Anne in gratitude for his victory over the French at Blenheim, together with a promise to provide funds to build a palace. A quarrel resulted in funds being withheld, but later, in 1716 the Duke restarted work paying the bills himself. The architect Sir John Vanbrugh and his assistant Nicholas Hawksmoor completed the current palace.

This guide describes eleven varied and interesting circular walks close to the town of Woodstock and Benheim Palace in Oxfordshire. The walks are between 5 and 11 miles in length.

The walk locations are:
Over Kiddington and Kingswood Bottom - 6.25 miles
Combe and Fair Rosamund's Well - 5.25 miles
Ditchley Park - 6.5 miles
Yarnton and Oxey Mead -5.25 miles
Long Hanborough, Abel Wood and Pinsley Wood - 4.75 miles
Woodstock and Gibraltar - 9.75 miles
Tackley and Pigeon Lock - 5.25 miles
Woodstock and Great Park - 6.25 miles
Woodstock, Combe and Akeman Street - 11.25 miles
Eynsham and Swinford Toll Bridge - 6 miles
Charlbury - 6.75 miles

ISBN 9781907669484 Pages 28 (2008 reprinted 2020) 148mm x 210mm