Other Social Events

Walking the Oxfordshire Way - Part 3

Once again we have been out and about on the Oxfordshire Way. A late withdrawal by Alan, due to car-failing-to-start problems, meant that again there were seven up for it. We welcomed Sarah for the first time, joined by Bill, Charlotte, Kevin, Martin and two Grahams. Despite two late arrivals (no names) the car shuttle was quick and we were at Wootton Door and underway by 1045.
The day was bright, which also meant cold, with a keen north-easterly blowing; just right for the first part of the day in which we headed generally (yes, you've guessed it) north-east. This was a continuation of Akeman Street, first met last time out. It varied here between a less-than-straight metalled road still with enough frost to be slippery under foot, and field headlands where the frost left the earth firm and pleasant to walk on.
We crossed the watershed between the Evenlode and the Cherwell, high enough for extensive views to the Chilterns for the first time, as well as the more local delights of Shipton cement works. Eventually we left roman road and dropped down to the braided River Cherwell with its mill, and arrived at Pigeon Lock on the Oxford Canal. Bill took the obvious team photo at the only navigable waterway we cross on this trip, before we found a sunny spot at the top of a disused quarry, now a nature reserve, for our lunch, where Martin's knowledge of feathered creatures came into its own. A buzzard, a kestrel (bird not disgusting lager) and other things.
We tried to anticipate the likely lunch-time brew but failed to find a red kite, a black sheep, or even a green king or an abbot. Indeed, we failed something we would recognise as a pub, the erstwhile Dashwood Arms in Kirtlington now being a very posh restaurant for the affluent Oxford commuter village. The other pub in the village was scarcely less suitable for walkers and as no-one was really fussed about having a drink we continued. Yes, you read that correctly, as no-one was really fussed about having a drink … old-age hits NWPG.
We crossed Kirtlington Park, laid out by Capability Brown and did see a distant view of Sir James Dashwood's elegant Palladian mansion, as described in our trusty guidebook. By the time you read this, it may have been supplemented by the Pevsner version of its history that Bill promised to provide.
Our guide book was accurate again in saying "you have finally left behind the dip slope of the Cotswolds. A new world lies beyond - clay country. Ah yes, clay. Fields of it which you collected on your boots as you crossed, and scraped off at the stile, only to collect a load more in the next field. We even resorted to scraping on the sleepers of the Bicester railway line, fortunately no trains on a Sunday, or so we hoped.
And so to Islip, where Sarah told us the story of the village as the birth place of Edward the Confessor and an outpost of Royalism in the Civil War. The pub, outside which we had parked six hours earlier, was shut, no 24-hour drinking here since they closed 19 of the 21 pubs that the village used to have. Oh well, we're supposed to be doing a walk not a pub crawl, so we shall all enjoy the delights of Otmoor on 5th March.