A very oxford day out

My friend Dan-of-the-geeky- but-impressive-encyclopaedic-knowledge-of-diverse-stuff and I have been planning for ages to tour Oxfordshire's lesser known amazing places. Yesterday we finally made a start...

We started with lunch (above) at the Falkland Arms pub in the osopicturesque village of Great Tew. The pub is named after a one-time local lord, who also gave his name to a wee set of islands that 25 yrs ago gave Britain a whole lotta trouble... The Falkland is scenic and gorgeous and serves a huge range of fruit wines (my favourite is still the elderflower) and meads, and does great grub. If you are reading this and planning to head to the UK any time soon, remind me to take you there.

Next up was an unscheduled stop at a neolithic burial chamber (below). It's one of those things that we have absolutely no idea about, but apparently it's some 5000 years old, so it's dead impressive.
Dan grew up in Oxfordshire, so the next stop was a trip to his home village of North Leigh. The church there is saxon, predating the invasion of 1066 and boasts this 15thC "Doom" (a painting of the apocalypse), the tomb of a bloke who died at the Battle of Agincourt, and a memorial to a bloke whose son, William Lanthall started the 17th Century civil war (he was speaker of the house of commons when he uttered the words "May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here,", placing parliament above the King, and overturning the notion of the "Divine right of kings".)

It blows me away that Oxfordshire, indeed all of England, is studded all over with these gems of history, so numerous that their tales are at risk of being lost for all time. Every village church, any crossroads, innumerable pubs, all have walls that, if only they could speak...

It took til mid afternoon for us to reach my number one destination for the day - this is the Roman Villa that Bill Bryson writes about in is book 'Tales from a small island'. It's huge, boasting more than 50 rooms, and including (in the area covered by a shed roof at the end of this picture below), one of the most complete mosaic floors of anywhere in Britain. There's also a massive bathhouse (so of course, I had Dan take a photo of me in the bath...)
The villa lies about a mile down a lane that cars can't go down - we took the lane in and then hiked cross country back to Dan's car, finding lashings of wild garlic along the way (I learned later that this is called a 'garlic wood'). We left with plans to haul some roman recipes out of a cookbook I have and bring a picnic to this spot durin the summer.


Last stop for the day was the bluebell wood at Boar's Hill. Wow. I need say no more - just look at this!

We were nonstop chatter about the day as we hauled ourselves off to the local co-op to pick up some dinner fixings - snausages with wild garlic, home made chippies and a bottle of red. By the time I cycled home at midnight I was knackered, but osohappy!

Thanks Dan!!