The Best Villages Near Faringdon, Oxfordshire

Faringdon is a proper market town rather than a tourist destination, which means most visitors to Oxfordshire drive straight past it on the way to Burford or Woodstock. Their loss. Within a 15-minute drive of The Old Crown Coaching Inn, you will find villages that have more charm per square metre than anything on the coach tour circuit, and you will have them largely to yourself.

Great Coxwell

Two miles southwest of Faringdon, Great Coxwell is best known for its medieval tithe barn, a 13th-century structure that William Morris called 'the finest piece of architecture in England'. It is managed by the National Trust and open year-round, with no entry fee. The barn is genuinely breathtaking: 152 feet long, stone-built, with a timber roof that has survived 750 years. The village itself is a handful of stone cottages along a single lane. Allow 30 minutes.

Buscot

Three miles northwest, Buscot sits on the Thames and is home to Buscot Park, a National Trust estate with formal gardens, a Harold Peto water garden, and an art collection that includes Burne-Jones's famous series of paintings depicting the legend of Briar Rose. The village has a lovely church and a weir on the Thames where you can watch the water tumble through on a summer afternoon. Time it right and you can walk along the Thames Path back toward Lechlade.

Coleshill

Five miles south, Coleshill is a quiet estate village with a distinctive clock tower and a strong claim to being one of the best-preserved villages in Oxfordshire. The Radnor Arms does a good pint, and there are several walking routes into the surrounding farmland. Coleshill was home to a secret wartime auxiliary unit during the Second World War, the remains of whose underground bunker can still be found in the woods.

Bampton

Eight miles east and famous to millions as the filming location for Downton Abbey, Bampton is a working village with a fine church, a community-run library in the old grammar school, and a weekly market. Beyond the Downton connection, it has genuine architectural interest: the church of St Mary dates from the 12th century, and the village's stone cottages line a series of narrow lanes that have barely changed in 200 years.

Kelmscott

Seven miles northwest, on the banks of the Thames, Kelmscott is where William Morris chose to live. Kelmscott Manor, his country home, is open to visitors from April to October and houses a collection of his textiles, wallpapers, and furniture. The village is tiny and very quiet, with a memorial hall designed by Philip Webb, Morris's collaborator. It is the sort of place where you stand by the river and the only sound is birdsong.

Uffington

Ten miles south, Uffington is the gateway to the White Horse, the 3,000-year-old chalk figure cut into the hillside above the Vale. The village itself has a handsome church known locally as 'the Cathedral of the Vale' and a small museum. Above the village, the Ridgeway National Trail runs along the top of the Downs, offering some of the best walking in southern England. Tom Brown's School Museum is here too, in the old schoolhouse that inspired Thomas Hughes.

Making a Day of It

Any three of these villages make a comfortable day trip from Faringdon, with time for lunch and a walk. Great Coxwell and Buscot pair naturally (southwest, both on quiet lanes). Bampton and Kelmscott work together if you want the Thames and the architecture. Coleshill and Uffington are best combined with a walk along the Ridgeway.

All of them are within 15 minutes of The Old Crown Coaching Inn, which makes Faringdon a considerably more practical base for exploring rural Oxfordshire than Oxford itself, where you will spend most of your time looking for parking.