Whilst visiting Fair Rosamund's Well and the nearby St Mary Magdalene's church at Woodstock, I discovered that Fair Rosamund herself supposedly ended her days at Godstow Nunnery, at Wolvercote, near Oxford. A visit seemed in order and I devised a circular walk. One fine Saturday in spring, we boarded one of Virgin Cross Country's new Voyager trains for the surprisingly rapid trip to Oxford. I may just have had some bad experiences, but it appears that the Saturday service is better than the peak hours weekday service and, drinks in hand, we simply relaxed and watched the world go by.
At Oxford, we came out of the station and turned left under the railway bridge and past the White House pub. A little further on the road crosses the Thames (aka Isis at this point) and the Thames Path takes off to the right on the near bank. The path picks its way between several channels of the river, through an area known as "Fiddler's Island" and soon leaves the city behind. After the path settles down to the left bank, a large open area becomes visible across the river, which attracts various wildfowl.
After a couple of kilometres, just by a boatyard, there's a left hand turn along a metalled track. This goes to the village of Binsey, whereat is the Perch, a CAMRA award winning pub which does good food. (If you miss the turn, there's a signed footpath a little further on, by a landing stage.)
We stopped for a drink and then walked on through the village to St Margaret's Church and its attendant well. The church, some way outside the tiny village, is refreshingly unspoiled and asks visitors for a modest donation towards its equally modest overheads. Give more on principle.
Leaving Binsey behind, the path makes it leisurely way to Godstow lock. I've taken boats on the Thames myself (though not getting this far up), so I wasn't perhaps quite as riveted as some other onlookers, preferring instead to read the story-boards. These turned out to contain two paragraphs that were the only information about the nunnery that I could find. Sadly, even that seemed to be at variance with the story as I learned it, although it's true that there are several versions.
Then it was on to the nunnery itself, the main reason for our visit. Some outer walls remain together with enough of the tiny St Leonard's chapel to give an impression of what it must have been like a up to few hundred years ago. A twelfth-century noble woman, Evida, widow of Sir William Launceline of Winchester, founded a Benedictine nunnery here, the abbey church being dedicated by Easter 1133. The nunnery quickly became rich – holding land in seventeen counties. This was partly due to gifts from Henry II, which were reputed to have been because of his love for Rosamund. Later, the nuns developed a reputation for licentiousness. Such local legends are common, but in this case the nunnery was the subject of numerous Episcopal visitations between 1357 and 1517, one report being quite explicit: 'Oxford scholars brag that with the nuns they may have junketing of every sort, to their heart's content… clerks of Oxford are to be utterly excluded from the nunnery'.
When the abbey was suppressed in 1539, the abbess and sixteen nuns were granted pensions and the complex was described as a church 'with chapells, cloister, chapter-house, misericord, the two dormitories, the convent kitchen, the garner, the artrium, and all other houses and lodgings'. In May 1645 the remaining abbey buildings were burnt down to prevent their use by Parliamentary forces.
This dedication of the chapel to St. Leonard may date back to the thirteenth century, although the records are unclear. After the dissolution it may have continued in use after the dissolution as a chapel of ease, because it appears to have been restored after the civil war. In 1191 Bishop Hugh of Lincoln visited the nunnery, saw what he was told was Rosamund's tomb near the high altar and reputedly had the remains reburied in the chapter house. However, by the late 1600s, popular legend already associated Rosamund's burial with St. Leonard's chapel. It may be that this association was a crucial factor in the chapel's continued maintenance. Certainly it persists to the present.
Next stop was the Trout, on the riverside. This was our (late) lunch stop, but beware, this was March and it was very busy. The food was well worth the wait and I suspect that the quality would mean the pub was busy in any case, but it's clearly also a favourite haunt for students from the city` as well as having appeared in the famed "Inspector Morse" TV series.
If the queues deter you, then there are two other pubs within easy reach in the centre of town. Walk on down the main road (you'll need to do this anyway if you want to return by a different route), through the modern housing, and you'll find the Red Lion (meals) and the White Hart (bar food) both just opposite the little church.
There are two routes back and we ended up taking both. First we turned into the nature park along a bridleway that runs south-east towards the railway and then back south-west to run alongside a small stream. The reason for taking this route was to see something marked on the map as Round Hill. We reached the "hill": it's about three feet high and at a guess it's a robbed- or ploughed-out tumulus. But after a mile or so what should have been a "little" stream quickly became a lake and when we saw ducks swimming across the path we turned back. Had we not been forced to retrace our steps, we could have followed the path and stream, crossed the railway and turned right to follow the last mile or so of the Oxford Canal towpath.
Instead, we wearily walked back to the gate and further along the main road until it crosses the canal and the railway on a high bridge. Having taken narrow boats on this stretch of canal (we like narrow boats) the lack of tow-path access didn't fool me for too long - I remembered the Plough and sure enough it became visible on the right as we descended from the bridge. Sadly, the pub was closed - the extra two miles' plus detour had worked up a thirst - so we walked to the nearby bridge and turned left towards the city. At this point I wished I had a "Nicholson" with me – the standard reference for canal cruising marks bridge numbers, making it much easier to know where you are: we had to make a couple of forays up to street level and at the second we found the Anchor, a friendly and very welcome locals' haunt.
Having been on this stretch of canal before, I was pretty certain that I knew where to turn off, through what is now a new estate with a number of cul-de-sacs, to get directly to the station. Without a Nicholson or prior experience, you may prefer to walk on a couple more bridges to what is fairly obviously the city proper, and then walk the extra half mile or so (or indeed hole up in a pub or tea-shop and order a taxi.
The train journey back was in darkness, but equally enjoyable. Driving to Oxford would, of course, have been possible, but the city does its best to discourage tourist vehicles, so parking elsewhere and using a train or the park-and-ride is a better solution. If you live near to a convenient station, though, the train is by far the best option.