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From Times Online

December 31, 2007

Eight great British new year walks

You might manage only a half-hour stroll in the park today, but be inspired this year to try at least one of these walks, and watch Richard Morrison's video of his journey around Oxford

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Be properly equipped

Walking around towns or flat terrain doesn’t require special clothing or skill, but proper preparation is essential when entering into remote and rugged countryside. The Ramblers’ Association provides comprehensive safety advice, including: what to wear, first aid tips, managing body temperature and what to do when encountering livestock. For more information visit: www.ramblers.org.uk

More walks around the British Isles in our special section

Walk 1: Oxford’s rivers and spires and an ancient townscape

Distance and time: 9 miles (15km); 5 hrs

Difficulty: An easy walk but can be muddy in bad weather. Many short cuts available.

Highlights: From dreaming spires to weeping willows, with some congenial pubs along the way.

Route: Start at Oxford Railway Station. Follow the River Isis north out of the city. Cut across Port Meadow, then return along the Oxford Canal and through Wolfson College Nature Reserve before making a brief circuit of one of England’s grandest townscapes.

Description: What I love about this walk is its variety. It gives you a bit of everything. Well, not mountains or canyons, obviously – but everything else. The majestic, gently flowing Thames (or the Isis and the Cherwell, as they insist on renaming it in these parts) guides you for about half of your expedition, and the quaint Oxford Canal – with its hippy commune of narrowboats piled high with bric-a-brac – for much of the rest. You come across the tantalising remains of Godstow Nunnery, once notorious for offering “hospitality” to impressionable young monks playing truant from the rigours of 4am Mattins. You cross the great expanse of Port Meadow: a flood-plain so flat and with such profuse birdlife that it seems to have been transported from the Norfolk coast.

You tramp through the ancient pastures of the Wolfson College Nature Reserve, unchanged since medieval times and never once ploughed or fertilised. You pass through that great expanse of playing fields and botanic glories known as the Parks, perhaps pausing to admire the magnificent spectacle of the Oxford University women’s lacrosse team pelting across the turf with their weird, netted sticks.

And finally, you thread your way past some of Oxford’s most historic buildings – Magdalen College, with its tower and bridge made famous (or notorious) by undergraduates’ May Day larks; Wolsey’s grandiose Christ Church, Wren’s sublime Sheldonian and, of course, the stately Bodleian, repository of more or less every book published in Britain.