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Banburyshire’s Ancient Sites:

About the Guide

Landscape image, ‘The Hoar Stone in Myriad Shades of Green’
‘The Hoar Stone in Myriad Shades of Green’, Beltane 2018

This section of the Banburyshire Rambles Journal brings together some of my ‘best’ photos and my past walks to document one of a little known gems in this part of the world; the large number of standing stones, earthworks, Medieval churches, and other ancient sites and trackways in north and north-west Oxfordshire.


Landscape image, ‘A Frosty Dawn at Rainsborough Camp’
‘A Frosty Dawn at Rainsborough Camp

My hope is that in visiting these sites people will not only come to know more about the local landscape and our ‘indigenous’ past; they will also reflect on how that relates to life in the present-day.

Yes, many people have heard of ‘The Rollright Stones’, but there are many more sites accessible in the local landscape. By accessing them on foot you get a better feel for how they, and ‘you’, exist in that landscape today.

In one sense this is a collection of memories. Of walks which produced some of my favourite photos. As I look through the images in my collection, though, I realised it described something more. A skeleton; a super-structure of places on which the essence of the local landscape sits. Its collection of ancient sites.

Landscape image, ‘Crouch Hill in a sea of fog and the dawn’
‘A Sea of Fog and the Dawn’
(Crouch Hill from Bretch Hill)

It is possible to access the pages of the guide by clicking on a map, or by scrolling down through a complete list of the sites in the guide. To find out about how to use the accessibility controls in these pages, see the ‘Accessibility Information’ page.

For a list of walks around some of these sites, see the local walks page.

This is not a ‘fixed’ guide. Over time it will change as new sites are added, new pictures taken, or as the landscape itself changes. In that sense I hope the guide, like the landscape itself, changes with the passage of time, recording not just the past but the present-day experience of this area.

As and when the opportunity becomes available I will add new photos and sites to the guide (see updates section). Likewise, any feedback would be appreciated (click on social media/contacts icons at the top of the page).

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