Abingdon County Hall Museum - 4 Things to Know Before Visiting

The Abbey Gardens are a charming stroll with flat, easy paths and wide gates. Amongst the planted flower displays can be found Victoria’s statue and the ruins which have fooled many a visitor into thinking they have seen the remains of Abingdon Abbey. It has won the Green Flag award for parks and open spaces for ten years in a row.

The Thames Path National Trail is a wonderful way to explore the River Thames. This long distance walking route starts at the source of the river in a field in the Cotswolds and follows the banks of the Thames for 184 miles (294km) through several rural counties before entering the City of London and finishing at the Thames Barrier in Greenwich.

Pendon Museum, located in Long Wittenham near Didcot, Oxfordshire, England, is a museum that displays scale models, in particular a large scene representing parts of the Vale of White Horse in the 1920s and 1930s. The museum's main feature is one of the world's finest landscape model of parts of Oxfordshire and Berkshire as they were around 1930. It includes exact models of buildings, of railways and other transport. The entrance fee includes an audio guide. Family trails are available too.

Harcourt Arboretum, in the village of Nuneham Courtenay, has the best collection of trees in Oxfordshire set within 130 acres of historic picturesque landscape. The arboretum itself is located six miles south of Oxford on the A4074 road, near the village of Nuneham Courtenay in Oxfordshire and comprises some 150 acres. Professor Simon Hiscock is the Horti Praefectus (Director) of the botanic garden and arboretum.

Didcot Railway Centre is a former Great Western Railway engine-shed and locomotive stabling point located in Didcot. It has a fine collection of over 20 locomotives, passenger coaches and freight wagons. Visitors will be able to take a trip behind one of the Great Western Railway’s steam express engines on the Centre’s demonstration line at weekends and Wednesdays.

Iffley Lock was built in 1632. It was one of three to be built in the 17th century – the others are at Sandford, and Swift Ditch. The original lock was built by the Oxford-Burcot Commission in 1631 and the Thames Navigation Commission replaced this in 1793. The lock has a set of rollers to allow punts and rowing boats to be moved between the water levels.