41 Best Sights in The Thames Valley, England

About 4 miles from Windsor Castle, the main horticultural delight of Windsor Great Park consists of 35 acres of ornamental gardens with impressive displays of 2,500 rosebushes and a tremendous diversity of trees and shrubs. The Savill Building, easily recognizable by its undulating roof in the shape of a leaf, holds a visitor center, restaurant, and terrace where you can dine overlooking the garden, as well as a large shopping area with plenty of gifts, cards, and original artwork.

From 1906 to his death in 1950, the famed Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw lived in the small village of Ayot St. Lawrence, 9 miles northeast of St. Albans. Today, his small Edwardian home, Shaw's Corner, remains much as he left it. The most delightful curiosity is his little writing hut, which is in the garden and which can be turned to face the sun. Visits to the house must be pre-booked. 

This fabulously ornate theater is where Oxford's impressive graduation ceremonies are held, conducted almost entirely in Latin. Dating from 1663, it was the first building designed by Sir Christopher Wren when he served as professor of astronomy. The D-shaped auditorium has pillars, balconies, and an elaborately painted ceiling. The stone pillars outside are topped by 18 massive stone heads. Climb the stairs to the cupola for the best view of the city's "dreaming spires." Guided tours take place a few times per week; call in advance for details.

Medieval pilgrims came from far and wide to the hilltop St. Albans Cathedral to honor its patron saint, a Roman soldier turned Christian martyr. His red-canopied shrine beyond the choir has a rare loft from where guards kept watch over gifts that were left. Construction of the mainly Norman cathedral began in the early 11th century, but the nearly 300-foot-long nave dates from 1235; the pillars are decorated with 13th- and 14th-century paintings. The tower is even more historic and contains bricks from ancient Roman buildings. Join a free tour of the highlights daily at 1:05 pm, or come for the more extensive free tours at 11:30 and 2:30 on weekdays, 11:30 and 2 on Saturday, and 1:05 and 2:30 on Sunday. Tower tours take place on selected dates, mostly on Wednesdays and Saturdays. Call or check the website for the schedule.

The attractive campus of St. John's has seven quiet quadrangles surrounded by elaborately carved buildings. You enter the first through a low wooden door. This college dates to 1555, when Sir Thomas White, a merchant, founded it. His heart is buried in the chapel (it's a tradition for students to curse as they walk over it). The Canterbury Quad represented the first example of Italian Renaissance architecture in Oxford, and the Front Quad includes the buildings of the old St. Bernard's Monastery. The public are welcome to use the gardens on afternoons.

With a 16th-century "checkerboard" tower, St. Mary's is a stone's throw from the bridge over the Thames. The adjacent, yellow-washed Chantry House, built in 1420, is one of England's few remaining merchant houses from the period. It's an unspoiled example of the rare timber-frame design, with upper floors jutting out. You can enjoy tea here on Sunday afternoons in the summer.

This traditional event, which dates back 800 years, takes place in Marlow during the third week of July. By bizarre ancient laws, King Charles owns every single one of the country's swans (just as his mother did before him). Each year, swan-markers in skiffs start from Sunbury-on-Thames, catching the new cygnets and marking their beaks to establish ownership. The King's Swan Marker, dressed in scarlet livery, presides over this colorful ceremony.

Seven hundred years' worth of funeral monuments crowd this spacious, galleried church, including the altar-step tombstone of Amy Robsart, the wife of Robert Dudley, who was Elizabeth I's favorite suitor. One pillar marks the site where Thomas Cranmer, Anglican author of The Book of Common Prayer, was brought to trial for heresy by Queen Mary I (Cranmer had been a key player in the Protestant reforms). He was later burned at the stake nearby on Broad Street. The top of the 14th-century tower has a panoramic view of the city's skyline—it's worth the 127 steps. The Vaults and Garden café, part of the church accessible from Radcliffe Square, serves breakfasts and cream teas as well as good lunches.

With exhibits on everything from food to burial practices, the Verulamium Museum, on the site of the ancient Roman city, explores life 2,000 years ago. The re-created Roman rooms contain colorful mosaics that are some of the finest in Britain. Every second weekend of the month, "Roman soldiers" invade the museum and demonstrate the skills of the Imperial Army.

Adjacent to the Verulamium Museum, this park contains the usual—playground, wading pool, lake—and the unusual, namely Roman ruins that include part of the town hall and a hypocaust, or central-heating system, that dates from AD 200 and included one of the first heated floors in Britain. Brick columns supported the floor, and hot air from a nearby fire was drawn underneath it to keep bathers warm.

Stretching up into the foothills of the Berkshire Downs between Swindon and Oxford is a wide fertile plain known as the Vale of the White Horse. Here, off B4507, cut into the turf of the hillside to expose the underlying chalk, is the 374-foot-long, 110-foot-high figure of a white horse (known as the the Uffington White Horse), an important prehistoric site. Some historians believed that the figure might have been carved to commemorate King Alfred's victory over the Danes in 871, whereas others date it to the Iron Age, around 750 BC. More current research suggests that it’s at least 1,000 years older, created at the beginning of the second millennium BC. Uffington Castle, above the horse, is a prehistoric fort. English Heritage maintains these sites. To reach the Vale of the White Horse from Oxford (about 20 miles), follow A420, then B4508 to the village of Uffington.