Retirement properties in Oxford

With over 40 individual colleges, ornate halls and academic buildings, Oxford’s iconic university locations often top the lists of the most popular sights to see. It’s not just the history and architecture that can be enjoyed though, there are adjoining gardens to many of the university grounds that offer pleasurable and quintessentially English walks.

Beyond this, Oxford itself is a very green city with a total of 28 nature reserves just waiting for you to explore, as well as numerous parks and walks such as those in the Lye Valley area of the city. There’s also Oxford Botanic Garden & Arboretum which is the oldest of such gardens in Great Britain and is home to over 6000 different species of plant.

Thanks to its incredibly popular university and large student demographic, the city is a vibrant and diverse place. This creates a real sense of community and buzz about the city, which is perhaps best reflected in the range of regular festivals that are held. These celebrations and events occur throughout the year including the Oxford Music Festival, the International Women’s Festival, the Oxford Wine Festival and many more. 

Culturally, Oxford is also quite famous and has connections to key figures from the literary world, such as revered authors like Oscar Wilde, C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien. As well as this, Oxford has made its way into a variety of popular works of fiction including the ‘Harry Potter’ series and Philip Pullman’s ‘His Dark Materials’ book series.

From the ruins of Oxford Castle & Prison to Christ Church Cathedral, there are many fascinating historical attractions to explore. A notable example is the impressive Bodleian Library, which is one of Europe’s oldest libraries and one of the city’s most iconic landmarks. 

Oxford is also home to many museums such as the Ashmolean Museum, which holds the accolade of being the ‘world’s first university museum’. Alongside this is the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, which houses a variety of internationally significant collections, including the world’s only near-complete remains of the now extinct dodo.

While the city itself has plenty of shops, stores, pubs, bars and places you can go for entertainment, it also offers lots of fast transport connections to other cities, should you want to head further afield. An hour on the train will get you to London if you want to go out and spend some time in the capital, while places like Reading, Cambridge and Bristol are all within reach. 

Looking to the areas that surround our retirement homes in Oxford, the idyllic Cotswolds are only a short journey away, as are the North Wessex Downs. Again these offer plenty of walks and beautiful countryside views. They’re also perfect for day trips out, should you have any family or friends paying you a visit. 

The wider county of Oxfordshire also isn’t short of great days out. One such example being Blenheim Palace, a decadent 17th century stately home which is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.