Share this tour
Offered languages
- English
- Italian
- French
- Dutch
- Spanish
This tour is suitable for all ages and it focuses on Oxford's literary heritage such as the lives of Lewis Carroll and 'Alice' Liddell who lived at Christ church college. You will also learn lots about the making of Harry Potter in Oxford plus about other Oxford writers such as CS Lewis of Narnia fame & Tolkien of the Lord of The Rings.
Duration: 2 hours. Your ticket includes up to £25 per person entry fees to Christ church plus the Divinity school Harry Potter film sites.
Notice: The final third hour of your tour is self guided audio guide entry to Christ church as private guiding is no longer permitted inside.
We guarantee entry tickets to visit Christ church- buying entry tickets on your own is complicated & they usually sell out.
See 'Additional Info' or 'Voucher Info' for known dates when Divinity school may be closed. On such occasions, we will replace with New college, assuming New college is open. See closures notices below.
What's Included
Meeting and pickup
Meet your guide wearing red iloveoxford lanyard and/or Hogwarts gown by our red sign OUTSIDE Oxford Tourist Info centre, 15 Broad street, OX1 3AS.
The tour ends outside Christchurch college
Itinerary
-
1Christ Church
Christchurch entry fee worth £17 or 18 per person is included in your ticket. Please note that entry to Christ church is self guided with audio guide as guiding is no longer permitted inside. The first two hours+ are a guided tour with the guide, followed by one hour self guided audio guide guaranteed pre booked entry ticket. Notice: even if Christ church website shows entry tickets are sold out, we still have VIP access to continue buying entry tickets up to 3 hours before the tour starts.
1 hour • Admission ticket included -
2Bodleian Library
Your guide will take you inside the Divinity School film site at the Bodleian library, as & when it is open. This £3 entry fee is included in ticket price. NOTICE: We do NOT visit inside the Bodleian medieval library though as it is NOT accessible to any tour operator or guide, nor to any children aged under 11 years old. On any dates that Divinity school may be closed- see such dates published on this page for closures notice- the tour will instead visit New college film site. If New college is also listed as closed on such dates, then this tour will only include entry to Christ church.
30 minutes • Admission ticket not included -
Radcliffe Camera (Pass by)
We pass by & mention such famous sights
Admission ticket free -
Bridge of Sighs (Pass by)
We pass by & mention such famous sights
Admission ticket free -
3New College
We will introduce New college Oxford university college from the outside only. This is where they filmed several scenes from the Goblet of Fire movie. If you wish to visit New college on your own after the tour ends, then you can just pay on the door without pre booking tickets to enter New college. Last entry to New college is about 4.30pm. Note also that New college is not open on Mondays during winter season mid October to mid March. During summer season, New college is open daily from 10.30am to last entry at 4.30pm & currently its entry tickets cost £8 per adult in 2023.
15 minutes • Admission ticket not included -
(Pass by)
The Turf Tavern is often described as Oxford's 'Three Broomsticks pub', due to its quaint look and odd location hidden away an alleyway that looks surprisingly like Knockturn alleyway. We don't visit inside the Turf but so long as the tour group size is not too large, we walk past this pub to introduce it as this is where Robbie Coltrane who plays Hagrid, used to drink with the other adult actors, while filming next door at New college.
Admission ticket free -
Hertford College (Pass by)
We introduce various colleges and sights briefly, like this one, as we walk past it on our route.
Admission ticket free -
All Souls College (Pass by)
We introduce various colleges and sights briefly, like this one, as we walk past it on our route. All Souls is the most exclusive college in Oxford as it's only a college for research but we like to point out to children how its towers signpost a 'W'- thus possibly making it a secret call sign for where witches or wizards study in Oxford!
Admission ticket free -
(Pass by)
We introduce various colleges and sights briefly, like this one, as we walk past it on our route. This is where the likes of a famous Slytherin master of dark arts called David Cameron studied! It's also where Michael Palin and William Golding studied too.
Admission ticket free -
Exeter College (Pass by)
We introduce various colleges and sights briefly, like this one, as we walk past it on our route. This college gave the title of, 'honorary lecturer' to JK Rowling and it's where one of Rowling's favourite authors studied- namely JRR Tolkien.
Admission ticket free -
(Pass by)
We introduce various colleges and sights briefly, like this one, as we walk past it on our route. This is where Lawrence of Arabia studied....and maybe Jesus too!
Admission ticket free -
4Lincoln College
We introduce various colleges and sights briefly, like this one, as we walk past it on our route. If the entrance is open, we usually stop here for 5 minutes to take photos from the entrance. This is where the current Slytherin Prime Minister studied but also where the write of Dr Seuss children's stories was a Rhodes scholar.
5 minutes • Admission ticket not included -
5Oxford Covered Market
We introduce various colleges and sights briefly, like this one, as we walk past it on our route. We briefly visit here to see the Harry Potter chocolate cakes in the cake shop window and to see and hear about the connection between Alice in Wonderland and Oxford, with several Alice related characters on display. This is the oldest Covered market in England.
5 minutes • Admission ticket free -
Balliol College (Pass by)
We introduce various colleges and sights briefly, like this one, as we walk past it on our route. This college dating back to 1263 has produced 4 Slytherin Prime Ministers including...the Boris. Adam Smith was a member of this college.
Admission ticket free -
(Pass by)
We introduce various colleges and sights briefly, like this one, as we walk past it on our route. This church we discuss from outside. Shakespeare in Oxford stories are discussed here and the tower dates back to 1040 AD!
Admission ticket free -
University Church of St. Mary the Virgin (Pass by)
We introduce various colleges and sights briefly, like this one, as we walk past it on our route. We introduce Mr Tumnis figure and the street lamp outside the church here as it's said to have inspired CS Lewis.
Admission ticket free -
Merton College (Pass by)
We introduce various colleges and sights briefly, like this one, as we walk past it on our route. This is where Tolkien taught.
Admission ticket free
Additional info
- Wheelchair accessible
- Infants and small children can ride in a pram or stroller
- Service animals allowed
- Public transportation options are available nearby
- Transportation options are wheelchair accessible
- All areas and surfaces are wheelchair accessible
Show 18 more
Additional info
- Wheelchair accessible
- Infants and small children can ride in a pram or stroller
- Service animals allowed
- Public transportation options are available nearby
- Transportation options are wheelchair accessible
- All areas and surfaces are wheelchair accessible
- Suitable for all physical fitness levels
- NB Please plan much more time that you expect to arrive in Oxford, especially if you are driving and need to park.
- Your ticket includes up to £25 in entry fees per person
- These tours MUST START ON TIME as we may pre purchase entry tickets for fixed entry times. If you arrive after the tour has started, you will unfortunately therefore lose your booking. Please arrive 5 minutes early for your tour at our meeting point. If you arrive more than 5 minutes later than the scheduled tour, then you will likely forfeit and lose your booking as it interrupts the guide and other customers, if we are trying to find you after a guide has started and left the meeting point.
- INFO FOR DRIVERS AND PARKING:
- If you are driving, then please allow extra 30-60 minutes over whatever time you think it will take you to get here. Oxford is NOT car friendly and it is congested roads and hard to find parking spaces....unless you park at the sign posted 'park and rides' on edge of town on any major road into the city and hop on their buses into city centre. The park and ride buses leave every 15 or every 30 minutes and take anything from 10 min to 30 min (depending on traffic) to reach city centre. So if you are going to drive, then please assume you should be aiming to park your car about one hour before your tour starts.
- PUBLIC TRANSPORT:
- We actually recommend instead using the much faster and reliable train services but again please aim to arrive about an hour or earlier before your tour starts as trains can be delayed and the train and coach station are about 15 minutes walk from our meeting point. There is also the coach service from London called the Oxford Tube which leaves every half hour or more but it can take much longer than its advertised 105 minute journey time. It drops you off either at High street Oxford or Gloucester Green coach station. It's quicker to ask to get off on High street near Carfax tower, then it's a 10 minutes walk to Broad street.
- Our higher ticket price reflects the special quality of typically having smaller groups than our competitors & our excellence at having almost daily 5 star reviews for this tour! While this tour closes for online bookings with up to 1 hours notice but if you ask Viator to call us up for last minute requests by phone, that may still be possible.
- INCLUDED IN TICKET PRICE:
- This guided tour with guide includes entry fee to Christchurch film site (worth £18 per person) plus we enter Divinity school film site (at Bodleian library) as & when it is open only worth £3 per person.
- Skip the queue entry Christchurch tickets, during summer, please note that if you book us at short notice, then Christchurch online tickets may have already sold out. In this case, the guide and you need to queue for entry to Christchurch to buy tickets on the door. This can take half hour+ on busiest days, so please book us ahead!
- IMPORTANT NOTICE IN CASE OF UNFORESEEN PARTIAL OF FULL CLOSURES:
- All these film site venues are private institutions, so we can't always guarantee entry to all parts of the college. Thus, please see details below of any dates with possible closures, before you book us.
- Please note that occasionally, Christchurch dining hall may be closed or can viewing from the hall entry only. This doesn't prevent us from running the tour, as contrary to public belief, Christchurch dining hall is NOT a Harry Potter film site. What they filmed was the staircase & cloisters. We endeavour to publish below, details of any dates when Christchurch has published that the dining hall is closed or can only be viewed from hall entrance lobby. However, these can be last-minute.
- REFUNDS POLICY:
- Please note that we do not offer refunds, unless there are exceptional circumstances to prevent the tour from running. Please therefore check the published dates of known Christchurch full or partial closures, as published on this website page!
- If you opt to book a foreign language tour, this may be possible if you give us adequate advance notice of at least 24 hours. If we cannot offer a tour in a foreign language, then you will be refunded or invited to join the tour in English with any cost difference refunded.
Tags
Cancellation Policy
For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.
Show more
Cancellation Policy
- For a full refund, you must cancel at least 24 hours before the experience’s start time.
- If you cancel less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time, the amount you paid will not be refunded.
- Any changes made less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time will not be accepted.
Rating
You can cancel up to 24 hours in advance of the experience for a full refund.
Your guide to the flawless travel experience
Top Searches
Company
Get our app
