A Spring Day Trip to Burford and Witney from London

Burford and Witney are eight miles apart on the A40, on the Oxfordshire edge of the Cotswolds, and together they make an easy day out of London in spring. One is the postcard: a honey-stone high street falling down a hill to the River Windrush. The other is a working market town with a blanket-making past, a farm out of Downton Abbey, and a lake to eat your lunch beside.

This is the order I did it in, with the parking, which in both towns is the thing that decides whether the day is pleasant.

Why Visit Burford and Witney in Spring?

Because the Cotswolds are at their emptiest and greenest. The coach season has not started, the blossom is out along the Windrush, and the light in April comes in low across the fields between the two towns. Burford is called the gateway to the Cotswolds, and in spring the gate is open and nobody is queuing at it.

The photo above is the Windrush at Witney, running clear past a whitewashed cottage with blossom on the far bank. That is what the whole day looks like.

What Is Burford Garden Company?

Start on the edge of Burford at Burford Garden Company, on Shilton Road, before you go into the town. It calls itself a garden centre and it is, but the plants are a fraction of it. There is a home department where the diffusers are expensive and the jazz is quiet, a clothing floor, an art gallery, a food hall and a café in a glasshouse.

The food hall is where to build a picnic. Local honey, jams, bread, cheese, and the sort of biscuits that come in a tin you keep afterwards. Buy lunch here and carry it to the lake at Witney later. It opens at nine on weekdays and eleven on Sundays, and takes cards only.

What Is There on Burford High Street?

Park at the top and walk down. Burford's high street is one long slope of stone houses to the bridge over the Windrush, and every one of them is a slightly different shade of gold. Antique shops, a couple of proper bookshops, and the Tolsey halfway down, a little Tudor building on pillars that is a free museum in the afternoons from April to October.

The butcher to find is W J Castle at number 111, three generations of family butchers in a medieval building. I had a pulled pork bun from their counter, eaten on the pavement, with coleslaw that they make themselves. If they have sold out, the pork pies and the chilli and honey sausage rolls are what the town queues for.

At the bottom of the hill, St John the Baptist is one of the great wool churches. Inside is the memorial to Edmund Harman, Henry VIII's barber-surgeon, and on the font the scratched names of Levellers imprisoned here in 1649. I have written about Burford in October in my Cotswolds autumn guide, when the hill fills with leaves.

How Far Is Witney from Burford?

About eight miles and a quarter of an hour east on the A40. Witney is bigger and less pretty than Burford, and better for it. This was the blanket town: Witney blankets were made here from the Middle Ages until Early's, the last mill, closed in 2002. The Blanket Hall of 1721 is still on the high street.

The centre is Church Green, a long green with the spire of St Mary's at the end of it, and the Buttercross of around 1600 at the market end. Park in Marriotts Walk, the multi-storey behind the shops, which is free for three hours on the lower levels and up to nine on the top ones. The Premier Inn also lets guests park free.

Is Cogges Manor Farm Worth Visiting?

Yes, and not only with children. Cogges is a thirteenth-century manor house with a farmyard, a walled garden and an orchard, ten minutes' walk from Church Green across the river. If it looks familiar it is because it played Yew Tree Farm in Downton Abbey.

In spring there are lambs and goats in the yard and the walled garden is just starting. Adults pay £12, the season runs from mid-February to the start of November, and dogs on leads are welcome outside.

Where Is Ducklington Lake?

South of the town, about a twenty-minute walk from the Buttercross or a two-minute drive to the free car park off the A415. It is a flooded gravel pit that has become a lake with a path round it, willows at the edge and a lot of ducks that know what a picnic is.

This is where the food hall shopping comes out. A lap of the lake is a mile or so on flat ground, and the benches on the west side get the afternoon sun. Witney Lake and Country Park is next door if you want a longer walk.

What Else Is Near Burford and Witney?

Three things within ten minutes of the A40. Minster Lovell Hall, between the two towns, is a ruined fifteenth-century manor on the Windrush that English Heritage leaves open and free; park by the church. Swinbrook, just east of Burford, has the Mitford sisters in its churchyard and the Swan Inn on the river. And Bampton, south of Witney, is the village that played Downton itself.

For a longer trip, my Castle Combe, Winchcombe and Minchinhampton weekend covers the western Cotswolds, and Westonbirt and Tetbury the south.

Visiting Burford and Witney: Practical Notes

🚉 Getting there: By car, about 75 miles from London on the M40 and A40, an hour and a half outside rush hour. By train, Paddington to Oxford and then the S2 bus to Burford, about an hour; or Paddington to Hanborough and a taxi.

Parking: Burford Garden Company has its own car park. In Burford town, the car park is at the top of the high street. In Witney, Marriotts Walk multi-storey is free for three to nine hours depending on the level. Ducklington Lake has a free car park signed off the A415.

🎫 Cost: Cogges Manor Farm £12 for adults, £9 for children. Burford Garden Company, the Tolsey Museum, Minster Lovell Hall and Ducklington Lake are all free.

🕒 Opening: Burford Garden Company 9am to 6pm Monday to Saturday, 11am to 5pm Sunday. Cogges daily from 9.30am, mid-February to early November. Tolsey Museum 2pm to 5pm, April to October.

📷 Best time to go: April for the blossom on the Windrush and lambs at Cogges. Late October for Burford's hill under the limes.

⏳ How long to allow: A full day. Two hours in Burford, an hour at Cogges, an hour at the lake, and the rest in the food hall.

*Photos by Ina/WithinLondon.