#oxfordshire

[florealegiardini]

The opulent Asthall Manor hosts a sculpture exhibition each summer, for just over a month, where you can enjoy the magnificent gardens. The manor was built in around 1620, and altered/enlarged in 1916. It has since been made grade II listed. 🧚‍♀️🍃 Asthall, Oxfordshire, England, United Kingdom ~ James Lloyd Cole

[peacefulandcozy]

Instagram credit: tansybranscombe

[livesunique]

Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom,

Will Pryce Photography

[allthingseurope]

Kelmscott Manor, England (by Andrew S Brown)

[ancientsstudies]

Oxford, Oxfordshire. x

[vox-anglosphere]

Christ Church Meadow - a lush oasis of calm within Oxford University

[spectrologie]

Oxfordshire, UK by adventuringbeth

[bookwormhistorian]

Being in Oxford is always a dream. It’s one of the only places in my life that I visited and had the feeling that I could live there forever. Always a pleasure to be back in this beautiful city♥️

[emerald-honey]

@theseptemberchronicles | Instagram

[survivethejive]

This Bronze age barrow on Hagbourne Hill is called Mount Skippet and is in the Oxfordshire village I grew up in. I visited it as I didn't even know about it when I lived there!

[peacefulandcozy]

Instagram credit: tansybranscombe

[livesunique]

Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom,

Photographed for Country Life Magazine by Will Pryce. 

©Country Life

[allthingseurope]

Hook Norton, Oxfordshire. England (by Mr. Underhill)

[ancientsstudies]

Oxford by tansybranscombe.

[pers-books]

The Rollright Stones, also known collectively as The King’s Men, the King Stone, and The Whispering Knights, Oxfordshire. Photographer unknown. 

There’s a bit of fascinating mythology about The Rollright Stones, which relates to the alternative names given to them.

The Stones take their names from a legend about a king and his army who were marching over the Cotswolds when they met a witch who challenged the king saying, “Seven long strides shalt thou take and if Long Compton thou canst see, King of England thou shalt be”. On his seventh stride a mound rose up obscuring the view, and the witch turned them all to stone:  the king became the King Stone;  his army the King’s Men;  and his knights the Whispering Knights (plotting treachery). The witch became an elder tree, supposedly still in the hedge:  if it is cut the spell is broken the Stones will come back to life.

Legend has it that it is impossible to count the King’s Men. It is said that the man will never live who shall count the stones three times and find the number the same each time. It is also said that anyone who thrice counts the same number will have their heart’s desire fulfilled. (It is harder than you might expect!) A baker swore he could count them and, to prove it, he baked a number of loaves and placed one on each of the stones. But each time he tried to collect them up some of the loaves were missing, spirited away either by the Devil or by fairies.

At any rate, this collection of megalithic monuments lies on the boundary between Oxfordshire and Warwickshire, on the edge of the Cotswold hills. They span nearly 2000 years of Neolithic and Bronze age development and each site dates from a different period.

The oldest, the Whispering Knights dolmen, is early Neolithic, circa 3,800-3,500 BC, the King's Men stone circle is late Neolithic, circa 2,500 BC; and the King Stone is early to middle Bronze Age, circa 1,500 BC.

The Stones are made of natural boulders of Jurassic oolitic limestone which forms the bulk of the Cotswold hills. This stone has been used extensively in the region for building everything from churches and houses to stone walls. The boulders used to construct the Rollright Stones were probably collected from within 500m of the site.

[Source]