Oxfordshire: Oxford Centre to Iffley: Fritillary Meadows

12 April 2012
Length: All day        A good town centre map is adequate for this walk

We started from the Old Parsonage Hotel in Banbury Road.  This is next to St Giles Church. 

Old entrance to hotel

St Giles Church

The churchyard had plenty of spring beauty Claytonia perfoliata, white comfrey Symphytum orientale (easily picked out at this time of the year before common comfrey begins to flower) and hybrid bluebell Hyacinthoides x massartiana, as well as the usual cultivated daffodils Narcissus spp. 

Spring beauty

White comfrey

On the church walls and stone tombs were yellow corydalis Pseudofumaria lutea, maidenhair and black spleenworts Asplenium trichomanes and A. adiantum-nigrum, and hart’s tongue fern Phyllitis scolopendrium. 

Yellow corydalis

Maidenhair spleenwort

 Another churchyard at the end of St Giles street was similarly full of spring beauty, which the feral pigeons were enjoying as a fresh salad.  It seems to be a common weed here.  Jackdaws were also scavenging here.  Some shiny cranesbill Geranium lucidum was flowering at the base of a street wall. 

Shining cranesbill

We continued due south down Cornmarket.  These central streets are prohibited to private cars, but there are continual streams of buses, taxis, delivery vans and bicycles, so we were still aware of traffic.  We turned along Market Street, downTurl Streetand across the High Street down Alfred Street to Blue Boar Street and Bear Lane in search of old walls with interesting vegetation.  Most walls are kept rigorously “clean” these days and it is difficult to find many plants, but in Blue Boar Street we came across buddleia Buddleja davidii, ivy-leaved toadflax Cymbalaria muralis, blue fleabane Erigeron acer (flowering in April – unusual for this late summer flower) and Mexican fleabane E. karvinskianus, yellow corydalis, wall-rue Asplenium ruta-muraria, hart’s tongue fern, and wall lettuce Mycelis muralis. 

Blue fleabane flowering in April

At the end of Bear Lane we turned into Oriel Square and here found ivy Hedera helix and pellitory-of-the-wall Parietaria judaica. 

Pellitory-of-the-wall

At the far end through a gate there was a courtyard with more plants at the base of the walls – white comfrey, garden strawberry Fragaria x ananassa, greater celandine Chelidonium majus, drooping sedge Carex pendula, petty spurge Euphorbia peplus, and creeping buttercup Ranunculus repens. 

Garden strawberry

The comfrey here had the striking yellow and black caterpillars of the scarlet tiger moth Callimorpha dominula, which hibernates as a small caterpillar and feeds up in spring. 

Scarlet tiger moth caterpillars on white comfrey

Along Merton Street (which is still cobbled) the walls of Merton College had more Mexican fleabane, along with thale cress Arabidopsis thaliana (a common pavement weed here), red dead-nettle Lamium purpureum, Adria bellflower Campanula portenschlagiana, shepherd’s purse Capsella bursa-pastoris, prickly sow-thistle Sonchus asper, chickweed Stellaria media, common field speedwell Veronica persica, and box Buxus sempervirens.  We saw no wallflower surprisingly, although this used to grow on these walls.

Cobbled Merton Street

Returning to the end of Magpie Lane, a path opposite led between Christ Church and Merton College to the expanse of grass known as Merton Grove, where we saw a mistle-thrush, while, at the far end, trees with the plant that shares it name, mistletoe Viscum album, were visible. 

Christ Church from Merton Grove

Entering Broad Walk, Christ Church Meadow lay ahead, although fenced off.  There are various old flower records from here, including fritillary and wild tulip, but now it appeared to be a flowerless expanse of rushes grazed by cows and Canada and greylag geese, although there were some cowslips Primula veris out near Broad Walk.  Turning south down New Walk we followed the western boundary of the meadow.  A stream coming across here had flowering lady’s-smock Cardamine pratensis, near which was a large patch of winter aconite Eranthis hyemalis, now in seed, with a single flower-head of bird-in-a-bush Corydalis solida protruding from among them.  The path leads to the Thames and a row of old plane trees Platanus x hispanica, commonly planted in Oxford as in London.  There were many more geese with coots, mallards, moorhens and mute swans. 

Coot on Thames

In a hawthorn Crataegus monogyna bush on the south side of Christ Church Meadow a blackcap was singing.  There were also alders Alnus glutinosa along here, and eventually a stream with greater pond sedge Carex riparia. 

Greater pond sedge

A very large tree, a raoul Nothofagus procera, just coming into leaf, stood near a side-stream of the Thames, across from the university boathouses. 

Raoul

On the river banks here were blue anemone Anemone apennina (including the white variety) and garden pansy Viola x wittrockiana.

White "blue" anemones

We returned from here back along the Thameside path to the main road St Aldates at the Head of the River Pub, where we saw Oxford ragwort Senecio squalidus which, like white comfrey, flowers before its commoner relatives.  This Mediterranean native originally escaped from Oxford Botanic Gardens, hence its English name. 

Oxford ragwort

We crossed the Thames by means of Folly Bridge, and then descended to the towpath along the south bank of the Thames, part of the long-distance Thames Path.  (There are two streams under the bridge: we had to be careful not to go down to the boat jetties on the island between the two.) 

The river was busy with boat-crews practising, coaches following by bike along the towpath to shout their instructions, so again one has to watch for cyclists. 

There was little of botanical interest along the banks, apart from occasional clumps of young leaves of goat’s-rue Galega officinalis, so we stretched our legs in earnest along here until we reached Donnington Bridge Road, climbed up to cross the bridge over the Thames and then turned left down Meadow Lane.  At the end of the allotments a path strikes left through grassland and scrub, and we then turned left and south towards the end of a small triangular peninsula between the Thames and a short side-stream where housebots were moored.  It was necessary to push through a rough nettle patch to reach the wet Iffley Meadow, where hundreds of fritillaries Fritilloria meleagris were crowded in full flower, mostly purple, a few per cent the white variety.  Some of the purple ones were very dark, almost black.  It was a lovely sight and protected by its seclusion.  The site is diligently managed by the Oxford Conservation Volunteers.

Fritillaries, Iffley Meadow

We returned to Meadow Lane and followed this south towards Iffley.  Meadow Lane Nature Park on the right had nothing of special interest, at least at this time of the year.  The road bends left and goes up to Church Way, where we turned right and followed this road right up to the church.  Along the way there was much cornsalad beginning to flower at the base of the walls – too early to check the fruits. We would have guessed Valerianella carinata, the one we usually find in this situation, but the Oxfordshire flora (Killick, Perry & Woodell) says that sopecies is rare, although there have been records around Oxford.  It therefore needs checking.  When we reached the old Norman church of St Mary’s we immediately encountered a huge old horse chestnut Aesculus hippocastanum beside the gateway.  Botanically the churchyard was well-maintained, with large areas cordoned off from the demon-mowers to allow flowers a chance to flourish.  In the mown areas was Good Friday grass flowering, less than a week after Good Friday.  Elsewhere were many primroses Primula vulgaris in prime condition still, and the usual bulb-plants like daffodils. 

Primroses & lesser celandines, Iffley churchyard

The main interest here, however, is the huge yew tree Taxus baccata on the other side of the church, reputed to be 1,600 years old and it certainly looks it, though still in great condition, probably the largest we have ever seen.

Iffley Church, with part of the ancient yew to the right

As there is a path only on one side of the Thames we had to return to Oxford by the same route by which we had come.  Crossing Donnington Bridge again we noticed more crowds of cornsalad flowering in the verge; being in grass here they might have been Valerianella locusta.  There was more Oxford ragwort and also annual wall-rocket Diplotaxis muralis, with its evocative but less complimentary name of “stinkweed”, which provides a quick ID check.  On one of the pollarded willow trunks along the Thames north of the bridge, approaching from this side, was a large batch of sulphur polypore bracket fungi, bright yellow and very attractive. 

Sulphur polypore on pollar willow

The willows that had not been cut were equally attractive with their yellow catkins; they appeared to be crack willow Salix fragilis.

Crack willow flowers

When we regained St Aldates we continued north along the road and then turned right along the High Street.  There are a number of eating-places around here for a quick lunch.  After burritos we continued right along the north side of the High Street.  Outside the University Church of St Mary the Virgin was what we presumed to be an old almond tree Prunus dulcis in flower, its sprawling trunks quite black. 

Old almond tree, High Street

Between All Saints and Queens Colleges there is also an old sycamore Acer pseudoplatanus, but one can only see the upper part behind a high wall.  Opposite Magdalen College is Rose Lane, which provided another wall to search for plants.  These included the heavily dark-splotched leaves of Hieracium scotostictum and much rue-leaved saxifrage Saxifraga tridactylites, both on top of the wall and at its base, small white flowers on top of reddening stems and leaves. 

Rue-leaved saxifrage

Returning towards the High Street end, there is a way into the Rose Garden and down to the front entrance of the Botanic Garden.  Outside stood an old lime Tilia x europaea covered with huge green clumps of mistletoe.  There is an entrance fee but it is relatively small, and the garden is well worth a look, as there is plenty of interest.  The upper garden is walled and sheltered, and the beds there are conveniently laid out according to botanical families.  Along the east side, outside the wall, are greenhouses with tropical palms, ferns and cacti.  The walls here, on the outside, have large clumps of maidenhair fern Adiantum capillus-veneris that has escaped. 

Maidenhair fern self-sown on wall

A lizard sunning itself on the wall quickly disappeared into a crevice.  Ladder brake Pteris vittata has also been known to grow here, but there was no sign at our visit, although inside the glasshouse it had escaped all over the walls. 

Ladder brake

Another fern, Cheilanthes eatonii (Eaton’s lip fern) from US to Central America, was possibly another candidate for escaping, having established itself in the cracks around the window. 

Eaton's lip fern

Some bulb plants and others were flowering beautifully inside the first glasshouse, the alpine section of the Lily House, including the brilliant red tulip Tulipa linifolia from Afghanistan, which was also flowering outside in the lily family bed, though not so exuberantly, and, interestingly given the focus of the walk on fritillaries, Fritillaria acmopetala, a greenish fritillary from the east Mediterranean.

Tulipa linifolia

Fritillaria acmopetala

In the walled garden are a number of trees, including a well-known example of service tree Sorbus domestica, although the buds were only just opening to show the rowan-like leaves; an old Pinus nigra; a very old white mulberry Morus alba; and, near the gate into the lower garden, the oldest tree here, planted in 1645, not long after the founding of the garden.  Unfortunately this last was a yew which suffered in comparison with the one we had just seen at Iffley, four times as old! 

The sticky resin exudations of the old black

pine occasion interest among visitors

In the bed along the eastern wall bird-in-a-bush had become a rampant weed, engulfing much else along here.  Pink purslane Claytonia sibirica (white form) had also established itself in these beds.  We could not find any Oxford ragwort, so it seems that they have decided they no longer need to preserve it!

Bird-in-a-bush as a rampant weed

Pink purslane (white form)

Leaving the garden we went across to Magdalen Collage and paid another entrance fee to enter its grounds and walk to the famous Magdalen Meadow.  While passing through the college we stopped at a tree just behind the President’s Lodgings, a plane planted in 1801 (to commemorate the “Peace of Amiens” which is now quite forgotten by most of us) from a scion at the Botanic Garden.  Its vast size shows how quickly this species can grow – it appears much older.  Around its base was an uncut grass area with wood anemones Anemone nemorosa, blue anemone, tulips and other bulb plants. 

Old plane, Magdalen College

Wood anemones under plane tree

Walking due east from here the path crossed a stream and then took us along Addison’s Walk around the Meadow, which is fenced off from access, although we could see great purple clouds of fritillaries, that must number in the hundreds of thousands, an amazing sight.  As at Iffley, there is the occasional white flower.  They are doing so well here (though endangered in many other places) that they are still expanding their range and have crossed the boundary stream to grow on the banks beside the path.  Along the path were also many primroses, sweet violet Viola odorata, goldlilocks buttercup Ranunculus auricomus, common whitlow-grass Erophila verna, and butcher’s broom Ruscus aculeatus. 

Last year's berry on butcher's broom

At the NE corner of the meadow we crossed a wooden bridge over a stream which had marsh marigolds Caltha palustris flowering, one having blooms nearly three inches across, as against the usual maximum of two inches.  Across here was a wet meadow where hundreds of fritillaries had spread outside the meadow fence and allowed a close view; here they were mixed with wood anemones and hedge garlic attended by newly-emerged orange-tip butterflies. 

Fritillaries in Magdalen Meadow

Out in the main meadow we saw another large lime with masses of mistletoe.

What the Bird Said Early In the Year - By C.S. Lewis

I heard in Addison's Walk a bird sing clear
‘This year the summer will come true. This year. This year.
‘Winds will not strip the blossom from the apple trees
This year, nor want of rain destroy the peas. 
‘This year time's nature will no more defeat you,
Nor all the promised moments in their passing cheat you.
‘This time they will not lead you round and back
To Autumn, one year older, by the well-worn track.
‘This year, this year, as all these flowers foretell,
We shall escape the circle and undo the spell.
‘Often deceived, yet open once again your heart,
Quick, quick, quick, quick!—the gates are drawn apart’.

The above poem is displayed on a board along the walk beside the meadow.  CS Lewis had once been resident at Magdalen College.  This poem was only published posthumously, but an earlier version with two more lines “Chanson d’Aventure” was published in 1938.  The board is on the west side of the path, in front of The Grove Deer Park where a herd of fallow deer was visible some way off, some of the antlered males sparring.  This herd has been here since at least 1705.

Having feasted our eyes here we left the college and took Longwall Street along the west side of Magdalen, north from the High Street, and into St Cross Road to the end where there is an entrance into University Parks.  We walked along the south edge eastwards to the banks of the Cherwell, where the path turns north to follow the river.  At the corner were several grey poplars Populus x canescens just coming into leaf and conspicuously white.  A patch of Chinese bramble Rubus tricolor with its shiny leaves bordered the path, after which there was a large patch of few-flowered garlic Allium paradoxum at the perfect time to see the flowers, although their sparse floppy heads always look untidy. 

Chinese bramble

Few-flowered garlic

Cowslips Primula veris flowered in the grass.  There are quite a few balsam poplars Populus x jackii along here with sticky buds that smell faintly of balsam.  One of the trees had attracted the dark brown alder fly Sialis lutaria, which breeds in the river and emerges in the spring before the may-flies. 

Alder fly on balsam poplar

There is a bench along here dedicated to JRR Tolkien, who was of course a professor here, and an acquaintance of CS Lewis.  We took this path beside the Cherwell, past the high-arched bridge that crosses it if one wants to continue along the other bank, and to the pond at the NE corner of the park.  We then returned to the bridge and took the path west to the exit in Parks Road, opposite Keble Road, returning to our starting-point.