Oldox Camp hillfort and Robin Hood Hill burial mound
Oxton
A Nottinghamshire village of Norman church fabric, community gathering places and a short trail into much older hills.
- Best for
- Local history, short walks and a pub stop
- Give it
- A half day around the village and hills
- Don't miss
- Oldox Camp and Robin Hood Hill
The Fox verdict
A compact base for old stories and short walks
Oxton pairs a Norman-core church and active village institutions with an Iron Age hillfort and Robin Hood lore beyond.
Come for a measured mix of parish history, recreation and food, then follow the local walking country towards Oldox Camp and Robin Hood Hill.
Where to go
Places in Oxton
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesYe Olde Bridge Inn
A family-run independent gastropub serving seasonal British produce, with countryside terraces, a beer garden and three outdoor dining domes.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- just off the A614
- Access
- Dog friendly, with a beer garden and a children's playground on site.
Oxton Village Hall
A multi-purpose venue for weddings, parties, classes, meetings and performances.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 30 minutes
- Locality
- Main Street
Oxton Recreation Field
A recreation field adjoining the village hall, with a children's play area and a cricket pitch.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- adjoining Oxton Village Hall
Walks & outdoors
1 placeRobin Hood Hill
A small, steep hill carrying Robin Hood's Pot, a Bronze Age burial mound linked to a local legend about hidden loot.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- between Oxton and Farnsfield
History & heritage
2 placesSt Peter & St Paul's Church
A Grade I church with a 12th-century Norman core, an embattled west tower and choir-stall woodwork that Pevsner called "rich but rustic".
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- Oxton
Oldox Camp
A well-preserved multivallate Iron Age hillfort of roughly 4.5 acres, with three tiers of rampart on its steep eastern side.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 60 minutes
- Locality
- about 1.5 miles NNE of the village
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Three ways to explore Oxton
Signature outings
Norman core, rustic woodwork
Look for the church's Norman core, embattled west tower and 1927 choir-stall woodwork that Pevsner called "rich but rustic".
Three tiers at Oldox Camp
Follow the form of a roughly oval hillfort whose steep eastern side carries three tiers of rampart.
Robin Hood Hill
Climb the small, steep hill that carries a Bronze Age burial mound and a local tale of Robin Hood's hidden loot.
The village story
Oxton Village Guide
Fords, village institutions and Sherbrooke stories lead into an older landscape of ramparts and legend.
The ford and the Old Green Dragon
Every March, the parish closes the ford on Beanford Lane to traffic so the toads can breed in the swampy ground around it. The smaller ford within the village stays open all year, rarely more than a foot deep, and cars go through it without much ceremony.
Two pubs anchor Oxton, both a short walk from anywhere in the village. The Old Green Dragon sits in the centre, in the middle of the Oxton Estate, and has been CAMRA's Nottingham Pub of the Year two years running. Up to sixteen real ales and ciders are on at any time, including Timothy Taylor's Landlord and a rotating line-up of "LocAles." Chef Blake cooks Wednesday to Sunday: beer-battered haddock with triple-cooked chips at £7.95, sausage and mash at £6.50, and a 32oz rump steak billed as "The Finest Steak in Town" at £25. There's a fenced dog garden out back with benches, parasols, free treats and dog beds for anyone who wants their dog more comfortable than they are.
Food, play and the community shop
Ye Olde Bridge Inn, just off the A614, runs three outdoor dining domes seating eight apiece and cooks with Nottinghamshire-reared beef and carrots grown in Oxton. Sunday roasts are the main draw, though reviewers note they can be inconsistent; expect to spend £20 to £30 a head. It has its own children's playground, and there's a further play area and a cricket pitch on the recreation field by the village hall.
The village lost its shop and Post Office in 2018. What replaced it, the Oxton Community Shop, is volunteer-run bar one paid member of staff, and sells what a village shop sells — bread, papers, frozen food, jams, groceries — plus a Post Office counter on Main Street.
Church fabric and Oxton's Sherbrookes
St Peter & St Paul's has a Norman core under substantial Victorian rebuilding. Pevsner called the 1927 choir stall woodwork "rich but rustic." In 1584 a member of the Sherbrooke family is recorded decorating the tower with ale poles. Margaret Sherbrooke later founded a school charity in 1783 to teach the village's poor children.
Oxton produced two Sherbrookes worth knowing. John Coape Sherbrooke, born here in 1764, went on to govern Canada. Rear-Admiral Robert St Vincent Sherbrooke, born in 1901, won the Victoria Cross commanding the destroyer escort of an Arctic convoy at the Battle of the Barents Sea in December 1942, against a German cruiser and pocket battleship. Wounded and temporarily blinded early in the action, he kept directing his ships and insisted on hearing every report until the convoy was safe.
Hillfort, legend and long memory
Oldox Camp, an Iron Age hillfort with three tiers of rampart rising on its eastern slope, sits a mile and a half up Windmill Lane, and makes a natural loop with Robin Hood Hill and its Bronze Age burial mound, said locally to be where Robin Hood hid his loot. Lowdham station is five miles off; the 747 bus links Oxton to Calverton and Lowdham, and a weekday morning service runs into Nottingham and back.
At Domesday the manor was valued at two pounds in 1066, falling to one by 1086. Nine hundred years on, the toads still get the ford to themselves every March.
Stay around Nottinghamshire
Make a longer stay of it
Travel Fox holiday homes around Nottinghamshire, linked directly to their property pages.
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Blair's Central Stay
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Melissa's Central Stay
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Stephanie's Central Stay
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A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- Ye Olde Bridge Inn — yeoldebridgeinn.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- St Peter & St Paul's Church — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Oldox Camp — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Robin Hood Hill — robinhoodway.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Oxton Village Hall — oxtonparishcouncil.gov.uk statutory register or public authority
- Oxton Recreation Field — oxtonparishcouncil.gov.uk statutory register or public authority