Midsomer Murders Country & the Goring Gap Cruise

About this excursion

£89 per person

The Goring Gap is the dramatic gorge where the mighty River Thames chiselled its way through the Chiltern Hills during the last Ice Age. Nearby are the picturesque villages and towns filmed as the fictional county of Midsomer. On this day we visit Dorcester – a head-turning village full of mediaeval, Tudor and Georgian Buildings and Alfred the Great’s Wallingford before rounding off our day out with a cruise through the Goring Gap. The day includes morning coffee with biscuits and a main course lunch at a 15th century hotel, a donation for Dorchester Abbey, a 90 minute cruise and, of course, a top notch Blue Badge Tour Guide.

We begin in the prosperous village of Dorchester at 10.30am (8 miles south east of Oxford) with morning refreshments included in your tour fee at an old coaching inn that has starred as three separate Midsomer Murders inns. Dorchester is a very small village with a very big Abbey. Founded by a Saxon Bishop this is one of the earliest Christian sites in England. There is a wonderful Tree of Jesse Window and rare and unusual action statue of a swaggering knight. We return to our 15th century coaching inn at midday for a main course lunch – we’d like you to choose beforehand from:

• battered cod with pea puree and hand cut chips
• scampi with salad and chips
• goats cheese tart with caramelized onion and salad or
• smoked trout salad with lemon mayonnaise, beetroot, blood orange and chicory

We travel by coach to Wallingford where you can really enjoy an hour to browse this flat and compact town, which serves as Midsomer’s Causton. Fans of the TV series will have great fun scoping out locations. Independent shops survive and thrive in Wallingford – look out in particular for the Wallingford Tea & Coffee Company and Pettits, the old style department store now owned by the Rowse honey family. Wallingford also has some great antique and collectables shops with surprisingly good prices. Fans of Agatha Christie will enjoy seeing the Corn Exchange where the author, who lived nearby, was president of the local amateur theatre company that is still thriving today.At 3.00pm we board the boat by the old town bridge for the six-mile swoop beneath the Chilterns from Wallingford to the Goring Gap.

We pass under the twisted brick arches of Brunel’s Moulsford Railway Bridge, one of the outstanding engineering wonders of the River Thames. The magnificent scenery in and around the Goring Gap is also the setting for such classic books as Wind in the Willows, Watership Down and Three Men in a Boat. You’ll see a whole variety of life and leisure on the river, from old-fashioned wooden skiffs, Edwardian style gentlemen’s launches to impressive modern motor cruisers. Look out too for the blue flash of kingfishers and above you the soaring kites that are thriving in the Thames Chilterns.

We step ashore at Goring, which became a fashionable place to live in the late 1800s when residents included Oscar Wilde and it still attracts a star or two today. We’ll be back on the coach and heading home by 5.00pm.

The cost of this day includes luxury coach transport, morning coffee with biscuits, a main course lunch, a donation for Dorchester Abbey, a 90 minute cruise, a top notch Blue Badge Tour Guide and , of course, treats.

Book on this excursion