Thame is a historic market town in the heart of Oxfordshire. Like many traditional market towns Thame grew from Anglo-Saxon roots but has since developed its own individual character. It has a busy high street and an 800-year old weekly market. It is 14 miles from Oxford and 47 miles from London.
We spent over three weeks based in Thame looking after lovely Labrador Charlie and Jemima the cat. Charlie was one of the easiest dogs we have looked after. He was well trained and loved his twice a day walks. An unusual, but good command he had been taught was WAIT. If you called this he would immediately stop!
Thame has an incredible network of walking paths and is an active town, but sometimes one can sense that a dog or a person ahead, is not happy with a Labrador bounding towards them, and then this command was so useful to be able to put Charlie back on the lead. The walking paths also run through the Cuttlebrook Nature reserve which is lovely.
Of all the places we have stayed so far in the UK we found the people of Thame to be the friendliest. Maybe it was the great amount of people of all ages interested in walking and being outdoors but a “Hiya” from everyone was very common.
Blackberries lined the walking path and were prolific when we first arrived. Charlie and I would sample lots of them whilst we walked.
We love the ITV series Midsomer Murders and have watched many of the episodes. Thame is one of the most frequently used film locations for Midsomer Murders. In fact for the later series the Causton town hall is the Thame town hall. The Thame Museum had many interesting displays and a new exhibition was actually on Midsomer Murders. This showcased all the local spots in Thame that had been filmed as well as other local villages.
We planned two Sunday outings around “Midsomer” type villages. It was really funny as after seeing the pub on one of the Sundays we then watched some of the series that night and there was the same pub !
Thame is also well known for Robyn Gibb from the Beegees. His estate is very close to the main church in Thame and his grave is in the graveyard. There is also an exhibition on his life at the museum.
Oxford is just 30 minutes away by bus. We spent a lovely day exploring Oxford, and it is one of my highlights of our time in the UK.
Waterperry gardens are not far from Thame. They are set in 8 acres and are made famous by Beatrix Havergal who established her School of Horticulture for Ladies here in 1932. The gardens are especially beautiful at the time of year we were visiting because of the full flower show of the aster daisies.
I was also amazed at the amount of seed types available at the garden shop at Waterperry. These are just the available tomato seeds.
Queen Elizabeth died during our time in Thame. We had seen on the news that she was very ill. I am very much a royalist, probably more my English Granny’s influence than my father. I think the Queen is an amazing lady, who served her people with such willingness and dedication. We waited to see more news on how she was on the 8th September, but there were no updates and it was getting dark. We had to take Charlie walking!
We almost got to the nearby sports field and a lady rushed out of her house with tears in her eyes and stopped us and said “have you heard, the Queen has died”. It was such a time of shock for England and the world. She had lived an amazing life, and yes, she was 96 but it still was a shock!
I had planned to meet my dear friend Sasha in London for a few hours. She was arriving almost at the end of our stay in Thame. I decided to go to London much earlier in the day so I could take some sunflowers to Green park to honour the Queen. You can read all about this and my visit with dear Sash here.
Great post. Glad you loved Thame – and Charlie – so much. You know more about its history than we do! You certainly seem to have made the most of your time here. Brilliant.
We had a fun, great time Mary!