Revd W. A. Spooner

The Reverend William Archibald Spooner was an Oxford institution - a New College man whose peculiar gift for verbal mishaps became the stuff of legend. His name spawned a whole linguistic phenomenon: the spoonerism, where you swap the initial sounds of words to comic effect. "You have hissed all my mystery lectures," he allegedly told a student, when he meant "missed all my history lectures."

Visiting the sites connected to Spooner in Oxford means wandering the dreaming spires where he lived and worked for much of his life. New College itself - where he was chaplain and warden - remains his most tangible connection, though the man himself is long gone. You won't find a museum or visitor centre dedicated to him; instead, you get the rather lovely exercise of walking in his footsteps through the university streets he would have known intimately.

History buffs and Oxford devotees will find real pleasure in this - it's the kind of literary-academic pilgrimage that makes sense alongside a broader college tour. Families with teenagers might find the linguistic angle entertaining enough for twenty minutes of conversation, but younger children will struggle to see why a long-dead clergyman matters.

There's no admission to pay, naturally. Allow an afternoon to explore New College and the surrounding quad. If you're based at Diamond Caravan Park, it's roughly a forty-minute drive into the city. Combine it with a proper Oxford punt and afternoon tea - the Spooner connection is really just the intellectual garnish.