A quiet, local guide to Oxford and its edges
This is a small editorial project written by people who live in and around Oxford — and who think the city is at its best a little way off the well-worn route.
The site began, as so much around here does, with the church at the end of Binsey Lane. St Margaret's is the kind of place visitors stumble upon and remember for years; a twelfth-century chapel on the edge of Port Meadow with a tiny holy well that Lewis Carroll turned into a children's joke. We started writing about it because the leaflet ran out, and we kept writing because there was so much more to say — about Oxford, the river, the villages along it, and the older, calmer rhythm of travel that the city still rewards.
What we cover
This is a guide to unhurried Oxford: the colleges, of course, but also the meadows, the country pubs, the church history, the walks, the bookshops, and the neighbouring corners of the Cotswolds and the Thames Valley that pair well with a day or two in the city. We write about heritage places, local food and drink, and the practical side of arriving in England well — including the quieter ways of getting between airports, towns and the doors of small village inns.
How we write
Every guide on the site is written from first-hand experience. We walk the walks, eat the lunches, sit through the services and check the opening hours. Where we recommend a pub, a hotel or a service, we do so because we have used it ourselves or because someone we trust locally has. We do not run paid placements. Where an outbound link is commercial, we will say so plainly in the piece.
Who we are
The site is edited by a small group of Oxford residents — a former college librarian, a parish volunteer at St Margaret's, and a travel writer who has been covering the English countryside for the better part of two decades. We are not a tourist board, a tour operator or a hotel. We are a tiny independent publication that happens to love this corner of the country and would like more visitors to leave it the way they found it.
Editorial standards
- First-hand visits. We do not write about places we have not been to.
- No paid placements. If a piece is sponsored, it will be labelled.
- We correct mistakes. If you spot one, please tell us and we will fix it.
- We respect the places we write about. We will sometimes deliberately not name a spot if we think publishing it would harm it.
If you would like to get in touch — to suggest a correction, recommend a place, or simply to say hello — please use our contact page.