Port Meadow, an excellent open space dog walk in Oxford

With one of the largest open spaces we have visited, 136.9ha, and with the River Thames flowing through the heart of the meadow, Port Meadow is an excellent option for a dog walk in Oxford.

Distance	Total Time	Difficulty
2.75 km	00:45	Easy

Here’s an interesting fact about the meadow’s history – the Bronze Age people used the site as a burial for their dead, while Iron Age people lived on the meadow during the summer. Some of the burials and settlements are still visible, mainly from the air but also from the ground in some cases.

Parking and admission to the Meadow are free, and there are toilets and dog waste bins in the car park north of the site, where we left our car. There is another car park in the south of the meadow. For the north-end car park, we used the postcode OX2 8PU as it was marked as the nearest postcode. It is located on Godstow Road.

There is also a picnic area between the car park and the meadow.

Because of the rain and the high level of the river, the meadow was quite flooded, and the girls had loads of fun on the muddy hike with the occasional “dip” in the large puddles of clear water. 

Don’t forget to check the post notes at the bottom of the page, with maps, a detailed table about the hike and links to everything mentioned in the post.

The Hike

Different from most hikes in the blog, we did not follow any trail but instead started our walk in the car park and after crossing the picnic area, where Pequi got super excited with the ducks, we followed the river until we could no longer cross the flooded area and then made a circular walk back to the car park. 

As it was the middle of the workday, the place was almost empty with just a few people walking their dogs.

This presented the perfect situation to allow the girls off leash for a while. They absolutely loved it – while Gamba kept rolling in the grass or strolling through the puddles, Pequi went after any bird she could spot, all whilst we could keep a watchful eye on them without fear of them getting lost in the woods. I am sure we will be going back to Port Meadow.

It was a great and somehow different walk from our usual and there are options to extend this walk either by exploring the neighbouring Burgess Field or crossing the river onto the Thames towpath. Both of which the gang intend to check out later in the year and make up a longer hike in Oxford.

Cheers,

Ademar

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