The Victoria Arms (Wadworth)
Mill Lane, Old Marston, Oxford.

I was thinking, as I looked out at rain lashing down on the 
animated-looking surface of the Cherwell, that I only ever seem to come 
here when it's raining.  This is not true.  When it's not rainign I'm 
sitting outside.

This is not an expensive pub.  Do not believe what they tell you, 
especially if they drink meretricious scoosh.  It is a big sloping field 
with a climbing frame, swings, benches overlooking the Cherwell pronounced 
Charwell, rings to hook up your punt to on the bank of the river, Duke of 
Argyll Tea Trees, and a yellow, redroofed building owned by the Oxford 
Preservation Trust and run by Wadworths of Devizes.

The bar is L-shaped and mostly runs north-south, the food in the north.  
The inside is comfortbale and warm in the winter.  Video games to the east 
of the foot of the L, and beyond that a plush and possibly restauranty 
section, brand new and non-smoking.  Also Dale Collins' Fun Quiz on 
Wednesdays.

The southern wall is domanited by a framed history of the pub, near a
shelf of books by the late Sir Walter Scott.  It was the Ferry public 
house till Victoria's Jubilee in 1887, and it continued to operate the 
ferry across the Cherwell until a year after the opening of Marston Ferry 
Road in 1972.

The best way to come here is by punt, but failing that there's the 
footpath up the side of the river from Marston Ferry Road, or even Mill 
Lane from Old Marston, if you're approaching from the east. (2000-04-21)