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I got the idea for today's walk a few months ago, when our daily events email at work included a pilgrimage from Abingdon Abbey to Oxford via Boar's Hill. I wasn't particularly interested in making an actual pilgrimage, or indeed in doing a work-related thing on a sleety Saturday morning in early March, but I thought the route sounded worth trying, and more interesting than Oxford to Abingdon via the Thames Path, which we did last year and which was pleasant enough but fairly dull, with a long tarmaced stretch from Oxford out to Iffley and vegetation meaning that for much of the walk the river wasn't even visible.
The British Pilgrimage Trust site claimed that the walk was 12 miles, but we decided that instead of trying to find our way through the northern edge of Abingdon as suggested we might as well just follow the Thames Path round to the Radley boathouse and head inland from there, and our walk ended up being just over thirteen and a half miles. After leaving the Thames Path, we walked up through the grounds of Radley College (me: "This is really weird! It's a school, but it doesn't look like a school!") to cross the road that heads into Abingdon from the north (at which point we realised that fully half the walk had been taken up by making a big loop around Abingdon) and then shortly after that the A34. From there, we walked into the village of Sunningwell where we stopped to eat our sandwiches by the picturesque village pond before heading up the southern slopes of Boar's Hill. We continued to Old Boar's Hill where we met a very friendly cat before walking up to Jarn Mound (where, with the trees in full leaf, the view is completely obscured these days) and then bac into Oxford down the Chilswell Valley and through South Hinksey. Because the BPT directions were rather vague, I abandoned them early on and used the walk as a chance to practice navigating by map alone, which went rather well as we didn't go wrong at all apart from a superfluous circuit of the tennis court in Hinksey Park. It makes an enjoyable walk, and it was nice not to need the car for once as both start and finish are completely accessible by public transport. We heard a cuckoo as we walked along the Thames Path and saw a kestrel taking flight and hovering just after we turned off at Radley.
The British Pilgrimage Trust site claimed that the walk was 12 miles, but we decided that instead of trying to find our way through the northern edge of Abingdon as suggested we might as well just follow the Thames Path round to the Radley boathouse and head inland from there, and our walk ended up being just over thirteen and a half miles. After leaving the Thames Path, we walked up through the grounds of Radley College (me: "This is really weird! It's a school, but it doesn't look like a school!") to cross the road that heads into Abingdon from the north (at which point we realised that fully half the walk had been taken up by making a big loop around Abingdon) and then shortly after that the A34. From there, we walked into the village of Sunningwell where we stopped to eat our sandwiches by the picturesque village pond before heading up the southern slopes of Boar's Hill. We continued to Old Boar's Hill where we met a very friendly cat before walking up to Jarn Mound (where, with the trees in full leaf, the view is completely obscured these days) and then bac into Oxford down the Chilswell Valley and through South Hinksey. Because the BPT directions were rather vague, I abandoned them early on and used the walk as a chance to practice navigating by map alone, which went rather well as we didn't go wrong at all apart from a superfluous circuit of the tennis court in Hinksey Park. It makes an enjoyable walk, and it was nice not to need the car for once as both start and finish are completely accessible by public transport. We heard a cuckoo as we walked along the Thames Path and saw a kestrel taking flight and hovering just after we turned off at Radley.
