Cycling type
Road
Distance
14 miles / 22.53 km
Duration
2 to 3 hours
Difficulty
Easy
Shape
Circular
Route description
A delightful short tour through Cotswold border villages, passing the site of an ancient abbey and visiting a beautiful secluded Wildlife Trust Nature Reserve. Quiet lanes and few gradients.
Highlights
Kingham was voted ‘England’s Favourite Village’ in 2004 by Country Life magazine.
Churchill has a church tower visible for miles, a two-thirds copy of Magdalen College tower in Oxford.
Bruern Abbey once a Cistercian Abbey and now a private independent day and boarding school for boys with dyslexia or other specific learning difficulties.
Foxholes Nature Reserve is managed Sarsden House by the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT). The reserve covers 159 acres and is mainly mixed uneven-aged semi-natural woodland (a remnant of the ancient Wychwood Forest). There are 350 species of flowers, 28 species of butterflies and over 50 breeding species of birds recorded in the woods.
Milton-Under-Wychwood’s history is tied up with Cotswold stone. Quarries were heavily used in the late 19th century supplying stone as far afield as Oxford. The village regularly had considerable rallies at that time as the early trade unionists attempted to raise the stone masons and labourers wages.
Start
Address
OS Grid Ref
SP2564422741
What3Words
Refreshments
Pub in Churchill, Pub and shop in Milton
Navigation
1. Turn left from station, after 1/4 mile turn left signed Kingham, go through Kingham and turn right after village green, signed Churchill.
2. In Churchill turn right at T-junction, signed Kingham Station. At the church turn left (appears straight on) signed Sarsden, then after 1/2 mile turn right, signed Sarsden.
3. Turn right, signed Merrinscourt then after 1 1/2 miles turn left at T-junction signed Lyneham, after 1/4 mile turn right, signed Bruern. After passing through Bruern turn left, signed Milton-under-Wychwood.
4. In Milton-under-Wychwood turn right, signed Library/Fifield, after 1 mile turn right at T-junction, and continue on through Fifield.
5. In Idbury turn right at T-junction, signed Foscot, then after a short distance turn right at T-junction, again signed Foscot. After descending through Bould and into Foscot turn right to visit the nature reserve, or continue on, turning right at the next junction signed Chipping Norton and return to Kingham Station.