Kidlington travel guide

Top 10 sights in Kidlington

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

1. 

   1

   Blenheim Palace

   A house given by the nation to the first Duke of Marlborough for beating the French at Blenheim in 1704, and the only non-royal house in England called a palace. Winston Churchill was born in it in 1874; Capability Brown drowned the valley to make the lake, which is the best thing about it.

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2. 

   2© Lewis Clarke · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Ashmolean Museum

   Britain's first public museum, opened in 1683 on a collection of curiosities. It holds the Alfred Jewel, made for King Alfred in the 890s, and Powhatan's mantle, the deerskin cloak of Pocahontas's father — objects that have been in Oxford since the seventeenth century.

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3. 

   3© The original uploader was MykReeve at English Wikipedia. · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Oxford University Museum of Natural History

   A neo-Gothic museum of 1860 whose iron and glass court is lined with columns of different British stones. The Huxley-Wilberforce debate on evolution was held in it within months of opening, and it holds the only surviving soft tissue of a dodo anywhere in the world.

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4. 

   4© David Hawgood · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford

   The smallest cathedral in England, and also the chapel of Christ Church college — the only building in the country that is both. The shrine of St Frideswide, Oxford's patron, is inside, and its cloister was used for the Harry Potter films.

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   5© Tejvan Pettinger · CC BY 2.0

   Oxford Castle

   A Norman castle of 1071, of which the mound and St George's Tower survive. It served as the county prison until 1996 and part of it is now a hotel, so visitors sleep in the cells; the tower's crypt is the oldest structure in Oxford.

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   6© Rhododendrites · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Pitt Rivers Museum

   A museum of 1884 whose half a million objects are arranged by type rather than by culture — all the boats together, all the musical instruments together — because its founder believed that showed how technology evolved. It is a museum about Victorian thinking as much as about the world.

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7. 

   7

   Beaumont Palace

   The royal palace Henry I built outside the north gate around 1130, where both Richard I and John were born. It was given away and quarried for stone in the fifteenth century, and nothing survives but a plaque on a wall in Beaumont Street.

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8. 

   8

   University of Oxford Botanic Garden

   The oldest botanic garden in Britain, laid out in 1621 to grow medicinal plants and one of the oldest scientific gardens in the world. Five thousand species grow on less than two hectares, and Tolkien's favourite pine tree stood in it until 2014.

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   9© Diliff · CC BY-SA 3.0

   University Church of St Mary the Virgin

   The thirteenth-century church that served as the university's first assembly hall, library and examination room. Cranmer was tried in it in 1555 before being burned in the street outside, and its tower gives the classic view along the High Street.

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10. 

    10

    History of Science Museum

    A museum of scientific instruments in the original Ashmolean building of 1683, holding the largest collection of astrolabes in the world. It also has the blackboard Einstein used for a lecture here in 1931, kept unwiped because someone thought to keep it.

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1. 

   1© Simon Burchell · CC BY-SA 4.0

   St Martin's Church, Bladon

   The church of the village of Bladon northwest of Oxford. Blenheim Palace, the Churchill seat, stands nearby, and Winston Churchill was buried in the family plot in this churchyard after his state funeral.

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   2© Dmitry Djouce · CC BY 2.0

   Tom Tower

   Christopher Wren's tower of 1682 over the main gate of Christ Church, built to hold a bell brought from Osney Abbey. Great Tom is rung a hundred and one times at five past nine each evening, once for each of the college's original students.

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   3© chensiyuan · CC BY-SA 4.0

   Carfax

   The crossing of the four main streets, and the centre of the city — the name is from the Latin for four ways. The fourteenth-century tower of the church demolished in 1896 still stands on the corner and can be climbed for the view.

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4. 

   4© Claire Ward · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Abingdon Abbey

   A Benedictine abbey founded in the seventh century that became one of the richest in England before Henry VIII dissolved it in 1538. The church was pulled down; the gateway, a long fifteenth-century range and the abbey mill stream survive by the Thames.

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   5© David Dixon · CC BY-SA 2.0

   Oxford Oratory

   A Catholic church on the Woodstock Road in Oxford. It belongs to the Oratory founded in England by John Henry Newman, and continues his presence in the city.

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6. 

   6© Kaihsu at English Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 3.0

   St Michael at the North Gate

   A church whose Saxon tower is reckoned the oldest building in Oxford. The tower was raised in the eleventh century beside the old north gate, and it can now be climbed for the view down Cornmarket Street.

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   7© sailko · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Christ Church Picture Gallery

   The picture gallery of Christ Church college in Oxford. It holds Italian painting and drawing from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century, including drawings by Michelangelo and Raphael.

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   8© Jorge Royan · CC BY-SA 3.0

   Covered Market

   A covered market between the High Street and Market Street in Oxford. It was built in 1774 to clear the stalls off the streets, and its butchers and bakers still run along the original lanes.

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   9

   Osney Abbey

   The site of an Augustinian abbey on an island in the Thames west of Oxford. It was founded in the twelfth century and for a time served as the cathedral of the diocese of Oxford; it was pulled down after the Dissolution, and only part of a wall remains.

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    10© Stephen McKay · CC BY-SA 2.0

    Oxford University Parks

    Sixty hectares of open parkland along the Cherwell, laid out in the 1850s and owned by the university, with no fences and no charge. First-class cricket has been played on its ground since the 1880s, and the boundary is marked out on grass anyone may walk across.

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