Banbury Museum is free and open six days a week, Broughton Castle is £13 on Wednesdays and Sundays, and the canal towpath costs nothing. Prices checked this week.

Banbury’s best day out is free, which is not the usual answer. Banbury Museum and Gallery charges nothing for its permanent galleries, sits on the canal in the middle of town, and opens six days a week. Start there, walk the towpath, and you have spent a morning without spending anything.

What follows is what is genuinely open, with prices we checked against each venue’s own website on 9 August 2026. Where a price has a condition attached, we have said so.

In Banbury, free

Banbury Museum and Gallery. Entry to the museum, including the Banbury and Waterway galleries, is free. Open Monday to Saturday 10am to 4pm and Sunday 11am to 3pm, closed Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day and Easter Sunday. Temporary exhibitions and events in the Pye Gallery carry a charge. It sits above the Oxford Canal at Castle Quay, so you can walk in off the towpath.

Banbury Cross itself. The one in the rhyme, though the current cross is Victorian: it was put up in 1859, on a roundabout at the top of the High Street. It takes five minutes to look at, and it is the town’s only genuinely famous thing, so you may as well.

The Oxford Canal towpath. The canal runs straight through the middle of Banbury, past Castle Quay and the museum’s lift bridge, and out into open country within a mile in either direction. Free, flat and the best walk in the town.

Spiceball Park. The large park on the Cherwell just north of the town centre, with the river, playing fields and the path linking through to the canal.

In Banbury, with a working boatyard attached

Tooley’s Boatyard, next to the museum, is a working narrowboat yard with a forge established in 1778 and a museum of 250 years of boatbuilding. It runs boat trips on the narrowboat Dancing Duck every Saturday through the summer, and volunteers are restoring the historic narrowboat Hardy on site. The forge runs blacksmith courses booked through the yard. Prices for trips and courses are not published on the site, so book or ring before you turn up expecting a specific time.

Within half an hour: the houses

Historic houses and gardens near Banbury, prices checked 9 August 2026
PlaceAdultChildOpen
Broughton Castle£13£8 (5–15)Wed, Sun, BH Mon, 2–5pm, to 30 Sept
Upton House and Gardens£18.00£9.00Daily in August, garden 10–5
Rousham House garden£10No under-15sDaily from 10am

Broughton Castle is three miles south-west of Banbury, a moated fortified manor house still lived in by the Fiennes family. It opens 2pm to 5pm on Wednesdays, Sundays and bank holiday Mondays, from 1 April to 30 September 2026. Adults £13, children aged 5 to 15 £8, and garden only £8. Private group tours carry a minimum charge of £400, so this is a place to visit as a family rather than a coach party of six.

Upton House and Gardens is National Trust, seven miles from Banbury on the A422 and just over the Warwickshire line. Adults £18.00 without Gift Aid or £19.80 with it, children £9.00, family £45.00. Free to National Trust members. The garden opens 10am to 5pm and the house 11am to 3.30pm, daily through August. Two things worth knowing: the government’s temporary VAT reduction runs from 25 June to 1 September 2026, so the price at the till may be below the advertised figure; and the gardens stay open until 7pm on 21 and 28 August. Meet Rembrandt: A Slow Looking Experience runs daily to 8 November 2026 on a limited number of first-come tickets.

Rousham House, down the A4260 towards Kidlington, is the William Kent landscape garden, largely unaltered since the 1740s. The garden is £10 per person, paid on arrival, open daily from 10am with last admission 4.30pm. No children under 15 without prior permission and no dogs. The house is by arrangement only at £20 a head with a £200 minimum. It is the most serious garden in the district and the least accommodating to a family day out; know that before you drive over.

Within half an hour: the brewery

Hook Norton Brewery is eight miles west of Banbury and is the reason a lot of people come to north Oxfordshire at all. The tour takes you through a five-storey Victorian tower brewery, past the original steam engine and the working shire horses, and finishes with a tutored tasting in the cellar bar. It costs £25 a head, runs about 90 minutes, and is capped at 10 people. You must book before you arrive. Group tours of 15 to 60 are £20 a head with the organiser free.

The visitor centre, brewery shop, Malthouse Kitchen, museum and shire horse stables are open to anyone not on a tour.

In Bicester

Bicester Village is the district’s biggest single draw and, for better or worse, one of the most visited retail destinations in Britain. It is over 150 boutiques, open 10am to 7pm, and it has its own railway station, Bicester Village, on the Chiltern line. Entry is free; the shopping is not.

Bicester is fifteen miles from Banbury down the M40, or 12 minutes by train to Bicester North, £7.00 for an anytime single and £12.40 for an off-peak day return. On a summer Saturday the train is the better idea.

Choosing a day out

Days out near Banbury by cost and opening frequency Decision chart. Free and open most days: Banbury Museum, the Oxford Canal towpath, Spiceball Park, Banbury Cross and Bicester Village entry. Paid and open most days: Upton House at £18 adult and Rousham garden at £10. Paid and open on limited days: Broughton Castle at £13 on Wednesdays and Sundays only, Hook Norton Brewery at £25 by booking, and Tooley's Boatyard trips on Saturdays. What is open today, and what costs nothing Prices and opening checked against each venue's own website, 9 August 2026. Free, open most days Banbury Museum and Gallery Mon–Sat 10–4, Sun 11–3 Oxford Canal towpath Spiceball Park Banbury Cross Bicester Village (entry) 10am–7pm, 150+ boutiques Paid, open most days Upton House and Gardens £18.00 adult, £9.00 child Free to National Trust members Rousham House garden £10, daily from 10am No under-15s, no dogs Paid, limited days Broughton Castle £13 adult, £8 child, £8 garden Wed, Sun, BH Mon only, 2–5pm Hook Norton Brewery tour £25, 90 min, booking essential Maximum 10 people per tour Tooley's Boatyard trips Saturdays through summer A whole free day: museum, towpath, cross, Spiceball Park. Upton to 1 Sept: the VAT cut may make the till price lower. Check the day before you drive: three of these are not daily.

Two practical warnings

Broughton Castle closes for the winter on 30 September and only opens three days a week before that, so a Saturday drive over will find the gates shut.

Hook Norton caps tours at ten people and requires booking. Turning up is not an option. The visitor centre and kitchen are open to walk-ins.

Where these figures come from

Every price and opening time above was read off the venue’s own website on 9 August 2026: Banbury Museum, Broughton Castle, Upton House, Rousham, Hook Norton Brewery, Tooley’s Boatyard and Bicester Village.

Admission prices change, and seasonal opening changes more often. Check before you travel, particularly for anything with limited days.

If you are driving over from out of town, check what is closed on the roads first; if you are coming by train, the times are here.