Danby Gateway and the walled beds
A 1630s stone gateway seals off the High Street from beds arranged by the plant family tree.
JMski — CC0 · -wuppertaler — CC BY-SA 4.0 · -wuppertaler — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Samuel Friedrich Klein — CC BY-SA 4.0
Britain's oldest botanic garden was planted in 1621 to supply medical students with herbs, which puts it before the first stone of the Taj Mahal and more than a century ahead of Kew. For all that history it is startlingly small: about 1.8 hectares wedged between the High Street and the River Cherwell at the foot of Magdalen Bridge. You step through the 1630s Danby Gateway and the buses and crowds of the city simply switch off behind you. The garden divides neatly into three. First the Walled Garden, laid out in taxonomic beds reordered along modern DNA-based lines, a detail that thrills a botany student more than a holidaymaker. Then the glasshouses, which deserve most of your time: a humid tropical house, an arid house of cacti and desert plants that will look oddly familiar to a visitor from the Gulf, and the lily house where giant waterlily pads float like green serving trays. Finally the Lower Garden sloping down to the riverbank, with one of the loveliest views of Magdalen College tower. Around 5,000 species in all. Philip Pullman readers make a pilgrimage to a wooden bench at the far end, the one where Lyra and Will promise, at the close of His Dark Materials, to sit each Midsummer's Day at noon, each in their own world. Practically: an adult ticket is £9 at the gate or online (a small booking fee may be added online), and under-16s go free with a paying adult, which makes this one of the cheapest stops in Oxford for a family. Open daily 10:00 to 17:00 with last entry at 16:00, closed for a few days over Christmas; no advance booking needed unless you are a group of 16 or more. There is no parking on site; the nearest is St Clement's car park across the bridge, or walk 10 minutes from Carfax Tower and 25 from the railway station. The ground is flat and fully wheelchair accessible so pushchairs are no trouble, picnics on the grass are allowed, but expect no more than a coffee cart with cakes and a set of toilets. Dogs are not admitted. The honest verdict: a calm hour to ninety minutes, at its best between April and September when the beds are in flower and the glasshouses double as shelter from a sudden shower. In winter the outdoor garden loses most of its colour and the glasshouses become the sole reason to pay, and with dusk at four o'clock treat it as a short warm interlude at most. With a single day in Oxford the colleges come first. If you are based in London for a week and have hopped up on the coach, pair it with Magdalen College across the road and a punt on the Cherwell from the boathouse under the bridge, and you have the pleasantest two hours in the city.
A 1630s stone gateway seals off the High Street from beds arranged by the plant family tree.
Tropical, arid and lily houses where the pads grow to tray size, your rain shelter and the whole point in winter.
A slope to the Cherwell bank with the Magdalen tower view, and the bench where His Dark Materials ends.
Rose Lane, High Street, Oxford OX1 4AZ
Christ Church MeadowTwo minutes from Oxford's busiest shopping street, pedigree Old English Longhorn6 minutes walk4.5
University Church of St Mary the VirginThe best photograph in Oxford is not taken from any street. It is taken from a n6 minutes walk4.8
Radcliffe CameraOxford's most famous building is one you cannot walk into. The Radcliffe Camera,6 minutes walk4.6
Christ ChurchThe dining hall your children know from the Harry Potter films is not here; it w7 minutes walk4.4
Bodleian LibraryNobody has been allowed to borrow a book from this library since it opened in 168 minutes walk4.5If all you want is grass and space for children to run, the University Parks are free and far bigger. What they lack is the glasshouses and the oldest botanic garden in the country, and since under-16s enter free a family of four pays only £18. So yes for families and plant lovers, no if you have a few hours in Oxford and want them for the colleges.
Thin outdoors: bare beds, a muddy riverbank and light gone by about four, with last entry at 16:00 anyway. The warm glasshouses are still lovely but fill twenty minutes, not an hour. Save it for April to September if you can.