Top 8 Natural Monuments around Bampton

Badbury Hill is home to the Iron Age Badbury Camp, a circular hill fort partially leveled in the 19th century. It’s thought to be a possible site of the Battle of Mons Badonicus. The hill also has a WWII firing range on its west side. Today, Badbury Clump, a nine-acre wooded area, is known for its bluebells in May and is a popular spot for walkers and dog owners. It’s now managed by the National Trust.

Fashioned of Portland stone and green slate by Fergus Wessel of Stone Workshop and mounted atop a hexagonal pyramid, the 16.4-foot-tall obelisk features one gold-plated bronze pointer on each side. Wavy incised and gilded lines mark the hours and quarter hours, and encircling the obelisk are engraved hieroglyphics that spell, among other things, Queen, Elizabeth, and Eternity—the sundial being Lord Faringdon’s tribute to the British monarch’s 50 years on the throne. Additional smaller obelisks stand around the central example, giving the effect of a mini Valley of the Kings in the middle of bucolic Oxfordshire. Source: architecturaldigest.com

Neolithic stone circle from around 2900-2600BC - a remarkable site to visit.

Neolithic stone circle from around 2900-2600BC - a remarkable site to visit. You can learn more here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npAxEvruu9M

The Devil's Quoits is a reconstructed stone circle henge, originally dating from the late Neolithic period, probably around 2900-2600BC. The large site with a 115m diameter earth bank, internal 2m deep ditch and 75m diameter stone circle is likely to have been of great significance and will have been visible from the Ridgeway, Britain's oldest road. The stone circle consisted of 28 conglomerate stones, with one additional stone standing slightly offset to the south. It is a truly remarkable site; transporting you back to a time where people travelled along the Windrush Valley from its headwaters to its confluence with the Thames at Devil's Quoits and further downstream to the Big Rings at Dorchester on the Thames. Many hundreds of people would have gathered within the site, observing from the banks and participating in rituals in the centre.

Taking its name from the place where delicious cheese were once loaded onto boats for shipping to London, Cheese Wharf is now a brilliant wild swimming spot on the River Thames near Buscot. It's owned by the National Trust and there are a couple of parking spaces nearby.

The present Lord Faringdon has, since 1978, transformed what was a grand, but largely redundant, eighteenth-century kitchen garden into a fine ornamental garden with a strong structure, within which a degree of informality is encouraged. Shaped as an irregular octagon, the garden is divided into four quadrants by the two main axis paths. Pleached hop hornbeams (Ostrya carpinifolia) have been planted along the longer east–west axis, with pink and white Judas trees (Cercis siliquastrum) trained over iron arbour tunnels along the shorter north–south axis. The effect, from whichever direction the garden is approached, is to create dramatic vistas, focusing on the central lily pond, with its fountain, statue and handsome balustrade. The Judas trees are at their peak of colour in June, at which point the extensive plantings of day lilies, from Lady Cynthia Carew Pole’s collection at Antony in Cornwall, begin to flower in the main axis beds, producing a succession of multi-coloured blooms throughout the summer and early autumn. The quadrants feature statues of the Four Seasons, by Frank Forster, the winner of a competition promoted by the Faringdon Collection Trustees and by the President of the Royal Academy. Dwarf box hedges surround each quadrant, interrupted by standard trees alternating with clipped Portuguese laurels and chosen to complement the seasonal theme: ‘Golden King’ hollies for winter, the fragrant pink-flowered Viburnum x carlcephalum for spring, the rose-pink lilac Syringa microphylla ‘Superba’ for summer and Hydrangea paniculata for autumn. An Indian bean tree occupies the middle of each quadrant, along with other trees chosen with the seasons in mind: Acer palmatum ‘Senkaki’ (the Coral Bark Maple) for the colour of its stems and bark in winter, along with winter-flowering cherry and Malus ‘Golden Hornet’ for its fruit; various crab apples and cherries for their spring blossom, laburnums for summer, along with the rare hop tree (Ptelea trifoliata) with its small scented flowers and winged fruits; and bright-berried rowans for autumn. http://www.buscot-park.com/grounds/four-seasons-walled-garden

Obelisk/Sundial created by Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd to commemorate the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. Fashioned of Portland stone and green slate by Fergus Wessel of Stone Workshop and mounted atop a hexagonal pyramid, the 16.4-foot-tall obelisk features one gold-plated bronze pointer on each side. Wavy incised and gilded lines mark the hours and quarter hours, and encircling the obelisk are engraved hieroglyphics that spell, among other things, Queen, Elizabeth, and Eternity—the sundial being Lord Faringdon’s tribute to the British monarch’s 50 years on the throne. Additional smaller obelisks stand around the central example, giving the effect of a mini Valley of the Kings in the middle of bucolic Oxfordshire. https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/sir-mark-lennox-boyd-sundials