Top 4 Lakes around Alvescot

This walk can be extended by walking from, and around, the centre of Witney or extending the walk from the Lake along the Windrush Path to Stanton Harcourt for a much longer walk

The pillars are carved with grotesque heads. These once stood at the top of the steps to the Peto Water Garden but have been moved to their current lakeside location.

A spectacular water garden which Harold Peto began designing in 1904 and finished in 1911. This is a series of stone-lined pools and canals filled with water lilies where there is always the gentle sound of trickling water. Steps and paved walks on either side take you past stone balls and sculptures, benches, a fountain – down to a tree-lined lake spanned by an elegant stone bridge, where a domed temple stands on the far shore like a scene from a Classical painting. Ducks, geese, herons, dragonflies and kingfishers have colonized this watery environment; and along its gentle downhill slope you will be tempted to explore tree-lined alleys where other features await discovery in the shade or sunlit clearings. Source: Discover Britain

it's called Witney Lake not Whitney

Lovely walk around the lake. Or further if you like. Look out for the turtle!

Taking its name from the place where delicious cheese were once loaded onto boats for shipping to London, Cheese Wharf is now a brilliant wild swimming spot on the River Thames near Buscot. It's owned by the National Trust and there are a couple of parking spaces nearby.

Buscot Lock is the smallest of the 45 locks on the Thames. The manual beam-equipped pound lock was built in 1790, today it looks just as it did more than 200 years ago. Before the lock was built, there was a flash weir, where boats would 'run the rapid' downstream. When the lock was built the weir was owned by E Loveden of Buscot Park, who was a very strong champion of Thames navigation. The lock keeper's cottage was built in 1791 and features a fish house. The old weir was renewed by Lord Faringdon of Buscot Park in 1909, and was replaced by the new cut and weir in 1979. It is a lovely weir pool which is now a National Trust picnic area and otters, kites and kingfishers can be spotted. The lock was purchased (included within a large estate) as part of Buscot Park in 1859 by Robert Tertius Campbell with money acquired in the Australian goldfields. He fitted water wheels to irrigate his estate, but sold up within 10 years, the result of overspending and bad luck. Later owners, Thomas Cook the travel agents, gave the site to the National Trust. https://www.visitthames.co.uk/about-the-river/river-thames-locks/buscot-lock