Explore Woodstock

Blenheim Palace is a country house in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, built between 1705 and 1722 to designs by Sir John Vanbrugh as a reward to the 1st Duke of Marlborough for the Battle of Blenheim. It is the seat of the Dukes of Marlborough and the birthplace of Winston Churchill, and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1987.

The Oxford University Museum of Natural History on Parks Road opened in 1860 in a neo-Gothic building by Thomas Deane and Benjamin Woodward, shaped by the ideas of John Ruskin. Under a glass roof on cast-iron columns stand dinosaur skeletons and the remains of a dodo. In June 1860 it hosted the evolution debate between Thomas Huxley and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce.

The Pitt Rivers Museum holds the University of Oxford's archaeological and anthropological collections. It began in 1884 with about 22,000 objects given by Augustus Pitt Rivers and now has more than 600,000. The galleries, built in 1885–1886 and entered through the Museum of Natural History, group objects by how they were used rather than by region or age.

The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology belongs to the University of Oxford and grew from the collection Elias Ashmole gave the university in 1677. Its present building on Beaumont Street was built in 1841–45 and extended in 2009; the galleries range from Egyptian and Greek antiquities to European paintings and Asian art.

Oxford Castle and Prison is a visitor attraction in the remains of Oxford's Norman castle and the county jail that grew up on the site, which closed as HM Prison Oxford in 1996. Guided tours climb St George's Tower, thought to pre-date the castle, go down into the medieval crypt and walk through the former prison cells.

The Sheldonian Theatre on Broad Street is the University of Oxford's ceremonial hall, built in 1664–1669 to a design by Christopher Wren and paid for by Archbishop Gilbert Sheldon. Its D-shaped plan follows the Theatre of Marcellus in Rome, and the ceiling carries 32 painted panels by Robert Streater. Visitors can climb to the cupola for views over central Oxford.

The Bodleian Library is the main research library of the University of Oxford, reopened by Sir Thomas Bodley in 1602 in the room above the Divinity School, completed in 1488. Guided tours lead into Duke Humfrey's Library and the Divinity School of the Old Library, and the Weston Library on Broad Street holds exhibitions, the tour desk and a café.

The Radcliffe Camera is a circular Baroque library building in Radcliffe Square, Oxford, designed by James Gibbs and built in 1737–49 with money left by the physician John Radcliffe. It is now a reading room of the Bodleian Library, so visitors usually see it from the square; the interior can be entered only on a Bodleian guided tour.

New College is a college of the University of Oxford founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester. Visitors enter from New College Lane to see the medieval cloisters, the chapel with a painting by El Greco and Jacob Epstein's statue of Lazarus, the dining hall, and gardens bounded by a stretch of Oxford's old city wall.

Christ Church is a college of the University of Oxford founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, whose chapel is also the cathedral of the Oxford diocese. The visitor route leads through Tom Quad, the largest quadrangle in Oxford, beneath Christopher Wren's Tom Tower, to the Great Hall and the cathedral; the college buildings appear in the Harry Potter films.

Magdalen College is a college of the University of Oxford founded in 1458 by William of Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester, beside the River Cherwell. Visitors walk through the cloister of 1474–80 with its carved grotesques, see the chapel and the Great Tower completed in 1509, and follow Addison's Walk past the college deer park.

Oxford Botanic Garden was founded in 1621 by Henry Danvers, Earl of Danby, as a physic garden on the bank of the River Cherwell opposite Magdalen College. Visitors enter through the Danby Gate of 1632–1633 by Nicholas Stone. More than 5,000 plant species grow in the walled garden, the glasshouses and the lower garden by the river.