Port Meadow, Binsey and Godstow: the Walk Locals Actually Do

Ask an Oxford local for one walk and this is the one you will get. Port Meadow is an enormous flat common on the north-west edge of the city, grazed by free-roaming cattle and horses, recorded in the Domesday Book and never ploughed since. The walk along its western edge follows the Thames Path about 4km to Godstow, where a medieval nunnery stands in ruins by a bridge, and a famous pub stands by the bridge in considerably better repair. It is flat the whole way, it works in every season with the right footwear, and it has a pub at the middle and the end, which is the correct number.

Getting onto the meadow

Start from Jericho. Walton Well Road runs down to a meadow gate with a small free car park (usually full; walking from the centre takes about twenty minutes and is easier), or use the Aristotle Lane entrance a little further north. Through the gate the city stops dead: open grass to the horizon, horses where traffic should be, and the spires behind you arranged for photographs. Head left, toward the river.

Across the bridge and up the river

At the meadow's south-west corner the Medley footbridge takes you over the Thames, here often called the Isis by rowers and older maps, past Bossom's boatyard and the moorings. You are now on the Thames Path proper, heading north along the water with the whole meadow across the river to your right. About fifteen minutes on, a lane peels off left to Binsey, a hamlet of a dozen houses, and at the end of its lane sits The Perch: thatched roof, 17th-century fabric on a site that has served drinkers for something like 800 years, and a walled garden that is the best within reach of the city. Food runs daily from noon to 9pm. This is the lunch stop, and on a warm weekend it is everyone's lunch stop, so book if the day depends on it.

On to Godstow

Back on the towpath the river bends past open water meadows for another half hour to Godstow Lock, and beyond it the ruins of Godstow Abbey: low flint-and-stone walls of a Benedictine nunnery founded in the 1130s. This is where Rosamund Clifford, the mistress of Henry II known to legend as Fair Rosamund, was buried; the nuns kept her tomb until a bishop objected. The ruin is free, open to the sky, and best in low evening light when the stone goes gold. A few steps further, across Godstow Bridge, The Trout waits at the weir: stone terrace over rushing water, log fires inside, a long menu, and a screen history as a regular Inspector Morse location. It is open daily to 11pm most nights and books up at weekends.

Getting back

You have three options. Walk back the way you came, which is no hardship in the other light. Cut across to Wolvercote village for a city bus back to the centre. Or, if someone in the party has had enough, taxis will collect from The Trout, though evening pick-ups from the villages are slow, so book the return before you order.

Winter, floods and common sense

Port Meadow floods most winters, and the flooded meadow is a genuine spectacle: a shallow lake the size of a small parish, packed with ducks, geese and gulls. The Thames Path along the western edge usually stays passable, but expect deep mud, and after sustained rain sections can go under entirely. Boots, not trainers, from November to March. Two standing rules in any season: give the cattle and horses room, they are used to people but not tame, and keep dogs under close control anywhere near the livestock. Swimmers use the river bank near the Medley bridge in summer; the water is unsupervised, so treat it with the respect you would any river.