10 Free Things to do in Oxford – England

Oxford, England is home to world-renowned Oxford University. In fact, the university makes up most of the town.

Oxford is the oldest university in England and one of the oldest in the world.

Unlike any other universities in the world, except Cambridge, Oxford University is made up of 39 historic self-governing Colleges. Each college has its own buildings set around plazas/lawns/gardens and their own courses, classrooms, chapel, dining hall and student housing. Most are hundreds of years old and still functioning schools.

The first colleges date back to the 1200s, but many others were added over the centuries, particularly during the 1400s-1800s. They all display stunning historic architecture, mostly constructed in stately golden limestone/sandstone.

A few buildings are so unique and important that they figure as some of Oxford city’s most famous places to visit. These include the round Radcliffe Camera (a library), Sheldonian Theater, Duke Humphrey’s Library, Divinity Hall and several buildings in Christ Church College.

Oxford has also been used for dozens of films and TV series. Films such as Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter, A Fish Called Wanda, to name but a few. As for TV series, probably the most famous is the popular British Detective Morse series. So another interesting angle for exploring Oxford is to visit film and series locations, which include various pubs, university buildings and plazas, parks and historic streets.

The general public is allowed to visit most of the colleges. Some allow visitors inside without charge, but the most famous colleges do charge a fee for visitors to enter. Just exploring the vast university could take weeks if done in earnest.

But Oxford also has plenty of other wonderful places to visit. There are several excellent museums, many beautiful meandering canals and rivers, Oxford Castle, historic pubs and shops.

Not surprisingly, many of these places charge admissions fees and some can only be visited by guided tour. That includes Oxford Castle, many of the colleges and the most famous university buildings. Visitors could easily spend £100-200 / $130-260 US if they wanted to access all these spectacular places.

Quite luckily for budget travelers, there are also many free things to do and see in Oxford. They include various museums, some colleges, lovely walks and explorations.

1. Join a Free Walking Tour of Oxford

Many major cities and towns around the world have one or more company offering free guided walking tours. The tours are usually tip-based, meaning that tour guides rely on participants donating a tip of their own discretion at the end of the tour.

The suggested tips are a non-obligatory donation. Travelers on a really tight budget, with limited means, could donate just one, two or five dollars, or none at all. Other ways to contribute / support the tour guides is to leave a positive review on Google, Trip Advisor or the tour’s website.

In Oxford, there are rather expensive walking tours as well as free guided tours. The pricey tours do include entry into one or more famous University buildings, while the free tours do not. But both types of tours give a great overview of Oxford’s long history, little known facts about various colleges, buildings, historic pubs and other insights into the beautiful city.

I joined this great two-hour free walking tour during one of my first days in Oxford. It was really informative and gave me a good overview of the university’s history and very interesting details about certain colleges and pubs. These city walking tours are a really good way to start travelers’ visits to Oxford and any other city they’re visiting for the first time. I join them regularly.

2. 10 Oxford Colleges with free public entry

I have the great fortune of staying in Oxford for more than three weeks, looking after a sweet dog near the city center. That gives me plenty of time to visit all of Oxford’s colleges, museums and other attractions.

So I’ve done a lot of research about Oxford’s colleges, their histories, famous alumni and visiting rules. Here are 10 colleges that I’ve found offering free entry to the public…

Exeter, Lincoln, Wadham, All Souls, Corpus Christi, Mansfield, Harris Manchester, St John’s, Keble and Nuffield. I’ve visited most of them so far and plan to visit the others this week.

I’m a huge fan of architecture, so for me, it’s worth visiting all of Oxford’s colleges. While most have quite similar architecture and lay-outs around central lawns, each college has something distinct. Many have spectacular dining halls, chapels and gardens, each one quite different from the others.

Travelers not as taken by architecture as I am might find that visiting a handful of colleges is enough. But for anyone enamored of architecture, I highly recommend visiting as many as possible.

3. Free Museums in Oxford

Not surprisingly, Oxford has several fantastic museums. Amazingly, most of them are completely free! They include…

Museum of Oxford, housed in the historic Town Hall
Modern Art Oxford, a small gallery nearby
Ashmolean Museum, featuring a vast collection of items from all over the world
Oxford University Museum of Natural History, housed in a stunning historic Neo-Gothic building and displaying dinosaurs and other fauna & flora
Pitt Rivers Museum, a specialized museum within Museum of Natural History that is renowned for its quite unusual display style, and which is featured in several movies & series.

4. Stroll along canals and rivers

The Thames River meanders its way through Oxford as well as several canals. They’re all lined by beautiful pedestrian and/or cycling walkways set under big shady trees, passing landscaped gardens, residential neighborhoods, vast meadows and small sections of the city. Some sections offer spectacular views of Oxford’s stunning historic buildings.

These wonderful waterways are often full of long narrow houseboats, English punter boats and college rowing boats. There are ducks, geese and swans gracefully gliding along, while small song birds chirp and flit about overhead. Public park benches are scattered along the waterways as well, offering a chance to sit and watch life on the canals and river.

These plentiful waterways flow on for miles and miles into, through and out of Oxford. Avid walkers could stroll for hours, days on end, along the many beautiful stretches of canals and the equally pretty Thames.

I’ve been walking these beautiful walkways every day for nearly two weeks thus far. I’ve found six completely different 1-2 hour long routes from my pet sitting home, situated just south of Folley Bridge. Each walk is stunning and enjoyable for both myself and my pet ward, Dougie.

5. Check out some amazing historic pubs

Oxford has dozens of adorable historic pubs scattered around town. They come in all different sizes, from a tiny one-room space to large taverns with several rooms and outdoor seating.

The oldest one, The Bear, dates way back to 1020 AD! Each pub has its own unique interiors and ambiance. Some are tucked down narrow winding alleys, like T Pub near Bride of Sighs, while one of the most famous is situated inside historic Randolf Hotel, and now called Morse Bar because it was the setting for so many Detective Morse shows.

Many of these pubs have been used to film movies and TV series, such as Detective Morse.

A fun free excursion – or excursions – is a self-guided walking tour of Oxford’s many historic pubs. If you set off to see them all in one go, it would take at least a half day or longer espcially since they’re scattered so far apart. Another option is to visit which ever pubs are close to each day’s other visits. For instance, a few are located right near Musuem of Oxford, a few others up along Oxford Canal near St Barnardos Church, etc.

6. Stroll through beautiful gardens, parks and lawns

Oxford is full of large open meadows, leafy parks and beautiful landscaped gardens. Each college has its own sports fields/parks/meadows. And the city also has various parks and gardens.

It’s always free to explore any of these gorgeous outdoor spaces. Many of them are lined by Oxford’s stunning college buildings, which you’ll also get to admire during your strolls.

One particularly beautiful area is Broad Walk, a pedestrian walkway running along the north side of huge open Christ Church meadow. At the eastern end is a famous old tree called Watcher Tree. Along the path, to the south is vast Christ Church meadow, while on the north are the stunning buildings of Merton, Corpus Christi and Christ Church colleges. At the eastern end, there are two beautiful landscaped flower gardens, one with Christ Church college buildings as backdrop.

Various movie scenes were filmed at this location, often with the colleges in the background.

But this is just one of many beautiful park walks found in Oxford.

7. Admire gorgeous historic architecture

If you don’t want to pay admission to enter Oxford’s most famous buildings like Radcliffe Camera, Sheldonian Theater and Oxford Castle, you can always admire their stunning architecture from outside.

Just wandering around Oxford’s many historic streets and alleys will allow you to see plenty of fantastic architecture. Besides the aforementioned masterpieces, there’s also the elevated stone pedestrian passage called Bridge of Sighs, a few stately stone archways over roads, Medieval Tudor-style shops, towers, cathedral spires, quirky pubs & cafes, original street lamps and lots of other interesting things to admire.

8. Explore Oxford’s unique covered market

Over the years, I’ve visited many local markets around the world. Some are outdoor markets selling fresh local produce, others more like flea markets with everything under the sun on sale.

In large cities around the world, I’ve also visited many historic covered markets, usually selling a range of fresh foods and produce, restaurants, cafes, bars and hand made products. Most historic city markets are Victorian design, with heavy wrought-iron frames, glass roofs and tall wrought-iron pillars.

But I’ve never seen anything like Oxford’s large, historic Covered Market. It has a fancy ‘vaulted’ wood ceiling painted bright orange with white wood beams. Hanging from the ceiling throughout the market are large translucent paper mache figures from Alice in Wonderland, figures like a giant tea pot, a rabbit, Alice herself and others.

It’s a very pretty market filled with a collection of very interesting shops, restaurants and cafes. There’s an Ethiopian restaurant, a Thai restaurant, a cookie bakery, a fancy tea shop, a coffee roasters, a classic British pie cafe, icecream shop, pizza parlor, a barber and more.

9. Visit movie and TV series locations

As I mentioned above in the intro, Oxford has been the setting for dozens of movies and TV series over the decades. The city’s cobblestone streets, colleges, rooftops, meadows and various historic buildings have been used to film them.

Some of the most famous movies include Alice in Wonderland, the Harry Potter films, A Fish Called Wanda, Transformers, Young Sherlock Holmes, Shadowlands, X Men and Howard’s End.

For Brits, the extremely popular TV series, Detective Morse, is one of the most famous shows filmed in Oxford. In particular, dozens of historic pubs round town were used in one episode or the other.

In addition, several world-renowned authors resided in Oxford and composed their masterpieces here. JRR Tolkien wrote The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Lewis Carol wrote Alice in Wonderland. Philip Pullman composed and filmed The Magic Compass. CL Lewis inspired the Narnia series, also set in Oxford.

Other renowned writers include TS Elliott, Oscar Wilde, DH Laurence and Graham Greene all lived and studied at Oxford.

Exploring Oxford from this angle, visitors can explore various film and series locations or check out the haunts of famous writers. Some examples include Alice Shop, where the real life Alice used to buy candies; Tolkien’s bench, where he used to sit; and various pubs where several famous writers in the 1920s congregated to discuss story ideas, among others.

When I first arrived in Oxford, I ended up buying the book ‘Oxford Film Locations’ at the Castle shop, which includes several self walking tours of Oxford. Most of the information can undoubtedly be found online with simple Google searches. Some of the most famous sites are also marked on Oxford maps.

10. Enjoy a Self-Guided Tour of Oxford’s churches

Scattered about Oxford are dozens of beautiful historic churches. They were built over several centuries in a variety of sizes, shapes, level of grandeur, building materials and architectural styles. Most of them are open to the public for free.

In addition, each Oxford college has its own chapel. Some of these are exceptionally spectacular, such as the chapel at All Souls College. Those colleges that are open free to the public generally allow visitors to enter the chapels.

Just locate churches on a map of Oxford and set out on your own tour. One of my favorites in Oxford is the rather unusual St. Bernabus Church, located in the Jericho neighborhood, close to Oxford Canal on the western edge of the city. The stunning interiors look to me like several Eastern Orthodox churches that I visited in Eastern European countries a few years ago.

BONUS:

11. Visit Oxford during the annual Oxford Open Doors weekend

Every September, Oxford Preservation Trust sponsors Oxford Open Doors, one weekend when a whole slew of colleges, historic buildings and tours are open to the public free of charge. There are also music events, a classic car show, rides on heritage buses and other free happenings.

During the weekend, a dozen or so colleges that usually charge entry fees are open for free during specified hours. Many of Oxford’s most famous buildings are also open free of charge. They include Divinity Hall, Sheldonian Theater, Oxford Castle & Prison, Halfax Tower, the Examination Rooms and others.

Special music events include things like a Medieval singing group, Ballads and a piano recital in historic Ma Hall and a concert at Sheldonian.

There are so many free things to see and do during the weekend, that it would be impossible to do them all. To take the fullest advantage, careful advanced planning is recommended, especially since some of the colleges, buildings and events require advanced reservations (even though free).

Anyone who’s especially interested in Oxford should really try to make it to the annual Open Doors weekend. I’ll be attending next weekend myself! Yeah!!! So I’ll let you know how my well my meticulous research and planning work for taking the most advantage of all the great offers on hand.

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