Cycling in the tracks of Britain’s camping pioneers from Oxford to Surrey

Britain’s Camping and Caravanning Club started as a cycle camping club 125 years ago. I cycle from its birthplace to one of its oldest campsites to see if its free-wheeling spirit survives Skylarks call out a cascading trill as I pedal between the pink and white hawthorn blossoms that make my path look like a May Day parade. I’m on the outskirts of Oxford, a city I thought I knew well, yet as I follow the National Cycle Route 57 on the e-bike I’d picked up in Jericho, it feels as though I’ve ...

By Phoebe Smith