The walk passes along Moor Lane, where it is well signed through a gate to the rough grass and massive earthworks of pre-Roman Salmonsbury Camp. Immediately, the razzmatazz of Bourton is left behind and the real countryside takes over, the 1.5 miles (2.5km) to Wyck Rissington passing through water meadows and over little streams, Eye and Dickler, which flow to the Windrush.

Wyck Rissington snuggles into the Dickler Valley. The houses, mellow beneath their stone roofs, are idly clumped about a wide green of rough grasses. There is no hostelry or shop, but there is a village pond and a well, and beyond them,
the squat and solid Norman tower of the church. Gustav Holst had his first professional appointment here. He was organist in 1892–3, aged 17. Passing through the churchyard, begin the ascent of Wyck Beacon, first cutting across short meadows then ascending half right to a clump of trees on a much larger meadow before keeping the left-hand field edge to a green metal gate. Beyond maintain left hand field edge to a minor road. Throwing a glance back on the way up, there are magnificent views over the Windrush valley and across the Cotswold upland.

Having walked right along the road to a fingerpost opposite an animal feeds shop, you pass over 812ft (247m) Wyck Beacon, an exposed upland for all the veneer of verdure, where the trees lean away from the winds, bitten back by their keenness. Beyond the A424 you descend along the private road to Gawcombe, past huge parkland trees and ornamental lakes. Gawcombe is no more than a cluster of stone buildings about the main house. Once beyond them and a collection of barns, the way is open and exposed following a green lane. Some 0.75 miles (1.25km) further on at a ‘crossroads’ of paths, the Oxfordshire Way veers left to follow the Westcote Brook.

Through a rusty gate, follow a green lane between hedges. At another metal gate, leave the green lane as it bends left to keep the line forwards. Cross two fields interspersed with footbridges then walk the left-hand field edge of a meadow to reach Bledington Church. Bledington Church has a porch that is 700 years old, and there is a tiny chantry chapel separated from the chancel by an arch. The mottled stone houses and the King’s Head Inn (detour left in front of the church), which provides accommodation as well as meals, are grouped about a peaceful green.

The Oxfordshire Way enters the county after which it is named after leaving Bledington. Leaving the churchyard, walk along Church Lane and turn right at a road junction. At another, take the road signposted Foscot and Idlicote. Just across the bridge, turn left to cross a small paddock between gates, then right up a field edge and through a gap to a green lane. Passing by woodland turn left at a field entrance then follow the field edge right, alongside a ditch. At farthest field corner, turn right into woodland and immediately left along a muddy path to a minor road.

The route then crawls shyly along the Evenlode valley to Bruern Abbey. Of this Cistercian religious house, founded around 1137, nothing remains. Here, on its site, is a yellowing grey stone mansion built for the Cope family in about 1720. The River Evenlode is rarely visible, but its presence can be felt as you pass into Bruern Wood, and then out into the fields again to Shipton-under-Wychwood. Shipton formerly lay on the edge of the Wychwood Forest, and Shipton Down, to the south of the village, was the scene of the Whitsuntide Revels, when local townsfolk had the right to hunt the king’s deer. Today Shipton is a peaceful village of honey-coloured stone, with a shop and a choice of three hostelries. The Shaven Crown, a 15th-century building, is traditionally claimed as a guesthouse of Bruern Abbey.