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Wooden lock gates with picturesque lockkeepers hut to one side
Buscot Lock, Oxfordshire | © National Trust Images/Hugh Mothersole
Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire & Berkshire

Buscot Red Walk

Discover Buscot village and the surrounding countryside on this circular riverside walk. One of the prettiest stretches of the 180-mile Thames Path, it's an easygoing route that mixes bucolic scenery with plenty of historical titbits. Follow it round to find the smallest lock currently on the River Thames at Buscot Weir, two Second World War bunkers and the remarkable remnants of a Victorian-era industrial farm.

Total steps: 9

Total steps: 9

Start point

Buscot Village National Trust car park, grid ref: SU23098

Step 1

Park in the National Trust visitors car park in Buscot, which is on the right-hand side as you drive through the village. Once parked, turn right out of the car park and walk down the the road to Buscot Lock.

Step 2

Cross the lock gates and turn right onto the Thames Path.

Step 3

Follow this path over a bridge and continue with the river to your right. You will pass a Second World War bunker.

Brick Second World War pillbox beside calm stretch of river and surrounded by reeds and trees
WWII pillbox by the River Thames at Buscot Park, Oxfordshire | © National Trust Images/Hugh Mothersole

Step 4

Eventually enter a willow spinney through a gate. Continue and cross a wooden bridge over the Thames to the right.

Step 5

Pass through the Anchor Boat Club onto a farm track. Bear right diagonally across field to the opposite corner (sometimes the farmer moves the path slightly further up the track and along the hedgerow to avoid livestock).

Step 6

Turn right through a gate and follow the hedge. Cross a footbridge and cross two fields to a gate beside the road. Turn right onto the track.

Step 7

Turn left through a gate before reaching the house and follow the hedge on your right around to the right by the house and pond. Go through the gate and turn left following the edge of the field along to Buscot Wharf.

Step 8

Head through the kissing gate and over the footbridge back into the Weir field.

Step 9

Turn left at the road to return to the car park.

End point

Buscot Village National Trust car park, grid ref: SU23098

Trail map

Buscot Red Walk, Oxfordshire map
Buscot Red Walk, Oxfordshire | © Crown copyright and database rights 2013 Ordnance Survey

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Coleshill, near Swindon, Wiltshire, SN6 7PT

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