Northern Oxfordshire has some good pubs and countryside to explore while also being relatively quiet and un-trampled.

A favourite pub in this part of the world is The Stag’s Head at Swalcliffe, about 4 miles SW of Banbury. If driving from Oxford to Swalcliffe you will most likely pass through the nearby village of Tadmarton. Here, after passing the local pub – The Lampet Arms – on many an occasion and saying ” We should go there”, we did amazingly actually finally stop and take a look. I was pleasantly surprised to find the pub, a mixture of pub, community hub and also partly a local sweets and cake shop. Good stuff! While in the village I also popped across the road to take a better look at and then draw the local church of St. Nicholas.

Here is a view of the church – and of my initial sketch.

Later with a bit of scanning and using a graphics programme I added some colour, a process that may sometimes help inform colour choices when doing a watercolour. Here is that initial digital sketch and the subsequent watercolour…

Since then I’ve framed up my watercolour and aim to give it to the pub as a sort of gesture to this community enterprise.

If and when I actually get to do this I should post an update…