Which Oxfordshire village was the destination of the boat trip where Carroll told the Alice story? The destination was Godstow.
On 4 July 1862, Charles Dodgson, who wrote as Lewis Carroll, travelled by boat from Oxford with Reverend Robinson Duckworth and the Liddell sisters—Lorina, Alice, and Edith. The journey ended at Godstow, an Oxfordshire village on the River Thames, then commonly called the Isis in the Oxford area. During the trip, Dodgson entertained the children with the story that became Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Godstow was not merely a name attached to the legend later. It was a real recreational destination for boating and picnics, and Dodgson regularly took the Liddell children on river excursions. The surrounding landscape and the leisurely summer journey became part of the book’s origin story, later recalled in Carroll’s prefatory poem “All in the golden afternoon.”
Readers sometimes confuse Godstow with Oxford, because the expedition began at Folly Bridge in Oxford. Oxford was the starting point; Godstow was the destination, roughly five miles upstream. The village’s surviving historic associations include Godstow Abbey and the river setting linked with Carroll’s famous tale.