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This riverside walk follows the Thames through one of the Cotswolds' most scenic stretches, starting near Buscot village and working around the impressive Victorian weir that controls the river's flow.
The walk is relatively gentle and manageable for most fitness levels, taking you through meadows and along the riverbank where you'll spot water birds and, if you're lucky, kingfishers darting between the reeds.
Buscot itself sits just southeast of Lechlade, a proper market town with pubs and shops if you want to combine your walk with refreshments. The village has real historical character—it was part of Berkshire until the 1970s boundary changes moved it to Oxfordshire, and there are two significant country houses here with impressive art collections that are sometimes open to visitors.
The weir itself is worth pausing at. Built during the Victorian era, it's an engineering accomplishment that transformed this section of the Thames into a series of locks and deeper pools, making the river much more navigable than it once was. The walk gives you a real sense of how the river shapes the landscape and the way people have worked with it over centuries.
Spring and summer are ideal, when the riverside vegetation is fullest and the walking conditions are driest. Plan for around two hours at a leisurely pace.
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