NCN 5 Oxford to Stratford-upon-Avon
Blenheim Palace
Ride overview
Stage 2 of the National Route 5 is a ride past four internationally famous gardens, each showcasing a different era, ranging from the twenty-first century back to late medieval times. Great borders of flowers and orchards are not confined to the grand estates, for on this leg, you ride past hedgerows and gently undulating fields filled with fruit and flowers. Accompanying the botany and horticulture are some of the most picturesque towns, villages and moated manor houses to be found anywhere in southern England, all dressed in the honey-coloured Cotswold stone. And bookending the ride is the home of the Dukes of Marlborough and William Shakespeare. It is a ride of ease through a harmonious and gentle landscape, where the challenge of the ride is not so much physical, but rather where and when to stop, such is the wealth of choice.
Ride practicalities
START/FINISH: Oxford/Stratford-upon-Avon DISTANCE: 99km TOTAL ASCENT: 789m TERRAIN AND SURFACES: quiet country lanes, cycle lanes, former railway tracks. After Banbury, there are three sections of bridleway, which whilst roughly surfaced are perfectly rideable on a touring bike with a 28mm tyre. RECOMMENDED CAFÈS/PUBS/ACCOMMODATION: All the houses and gardens open to the public have cafés MAINLINE TRAIN SERVICES: Banbury, Stratford-upon-Avon PLACES TO VISIT: Blenheim Palace, Broughton Grange Gardens, Broughton Castle, Hidcote Gardens, Shakespeare’s Birthplace and Anne Hathaway’s Cottage LINKS TO OTHER ROUTES: Stage 1 London to Oxford NCN 5
Ride Notes
Once out of the city centre, where you ride on quiet-ish roads, there’s a further 7km on a fully segregated path beside the A44. It is the day’s only mundane and noisy section.
If Woodstock was anywhere else in England, it would probably be overrun with visitors keen to enjoy the pleasures of a delectable medieval town. To it chagrin as well as to its benefit, the grand and glorious neighbour, Blenheim Palace, is the bigger draw. It was built as a gift of the state to reward John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, for his victory on the battlefield of Blenheim. The Palace is as impressive as it is curious - for it is a home, a mausoleum, a national monument and a UNESCO World Heritage building, but for many, it is the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill’s which is the main reason for visiting. (He’s buried just up the road in Blanford). Should you wish to escape the opulence of the interior, there are Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown’s gracious grounds to wander in, as well as formal gardens (where Britain’s oldest oak tree lives).
Blenheim Palace
If you choose not visit Blenheim, ride through Woodstock on Route 5 and pause at Town Gate, where there is the best of all views across the lake to the Grand Bridge and Blenheim Palace behind. For the next 25km you roll along through rural England on a series of narrow lanes to Barford St. John, where thin slips of metal, barely more than the diameter of a scaffold pole, rise out of the fields as if some monster tower block is about to be built. They are in fact part of the US Air Force’s ‘Giant Talk’ a world-wide command and control network.
The day has manifold opportunities to stop and discover some of the nation’s great treasures. Having seen the quintessential English landscape garden at Blenheim, you might wish to compare and contrast it with the gardens at Broughton Grange, where you’ll find a contemporary garden designed by Tom Stuart-Smith. Two miles later you pass Broughton Castle, where the gardens, especially in high summer, are spectacular. You'll no doubt have seen the moated manor house, a masterpiece of Tudor architecture many times, for it has been featured in any number of films and TV shows ranging from Morecombe and Wise’s 1975 Christmas Show to Wolf Hall. The moated manor house is a masterpiece of Tudor architecture.
Other than gardens, palaces and manor houses, the main draw of the route is the ‘Cotswold Stone’. It began its existence 160 million years ago when much of England was covered in a shallow tropical sea. (It is the same sea which made the Chilterns which you rode over on Stage 1) Over millions of years, corals, molluscs, sea urchins and other creatures which had accumulated on the sea floor were compressed into this honey stone, known to geologists as ‘oolithic limestone.’ Look closely and you will see many fossils, especially those of sea urchins.
Between Broughton and Sibford Ferris, you swap asphalt for three kilometres of bridleways which take you bumping alongside fields of grain or through avenues of lime trees in whose shade sheep shelter.
National Cycle Route 5 in Warwickshire
If you’ve managed to ride to Quinton without stopping for palaces, gardens, or moated manor houses, it might be that you’ve been saving your time and energy for Hidcote (NT). The gardens are world-famous and were inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement of the early twentieth century. It’s Grade 1 listed and was the first garden-only given to the National Trust. It was one of the first too, to have ‘rooms’, intimate spaces filled with colour.
Continue pedalling along the edge of the Cotswold’s National Landscape, through the country of William Shakespeare - ‘The fresh green lap of fair King Richard's land’ - passing rose-adorned cottages, distant manor houses, square church towers. There’s nothing wild here, everything is in its place; oaks seem to have been positioned purposefully to please the eye, the hedges are neatly kept, the waysides, flower-lined. Sheep bleat and baa, reminding one that historically this region’s considerable medieval wealth was built on profits from the wool trade. What hills there are, are gentle and the surfaces allow you to make good progress.
Black Welsh Mountain Sheep, in Warwickshire
People pilgrimage from all over the world to pay homage to the world’s greatest playwright in the town of his birth. There’s still no better place to watch Shakespeare’s plays than in his hometown either in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre or the Swann. (You’ll need to have booked ahead if that is your desire). There’s The Bard’s birthplace and his bride Anne Hathaway’s cottage, a 500 year old timber-framed cottage with a delectable cottage garden that’ll have you composing sonnets about roses in no time. The church is grand and Shakespeare is buried inside. It is said that anyone who tries to remove him will be cursed by the man himself. There’s plenty of timber framed houses in the town too, plenty of open spaces with benches to sit upon. It can be quite the thing to observe the multitudes of excited tourists walking around the town clutching their translated copies of Shakespeare’s plays written in cursive Arabic script or in Chinese characters.
Every route on this website has been carefully researched as well as ridden. However situations on the ground can change quickly. If you know of changes to this route, or cafes, pubs and the like which you think other cyclists need to know about, feel free to share your thoughts below.
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