London to Oxford by Chauffeur

Close enough to look simple, Oxford is awkward enough to prove otherwise. The alternative runs through Paddington, a change of pace at the station, then a taxi into a centre laid out deliberately to keep cars away. With a chauffeur you reach the college gate instead, and on a graduation morning, in academic dress, with the family in tow, that is worth considerably more than the difference in cost.

Leaving west London, the M40 climbs through the Chilterns and drops down the Stokenchurch cutting, past a view better than most the English motorway network can show. Junction 8 at Wheatley delivers you onto the ring road, and what happens next rests entirely on which part of Oxford you want. The Woodstock Road, the Iffley Road and the station approach amount to three quite separate journeys.

Ninety minutes is both useful and awkward. Too brief for serious work, too long to throw away, so most guests spend it arriving in the right frame of mind. That counts for a good deal on interview days, at matriculation and at graduations, where turning up flustered does nobody any favours. Families travelling with a student and a car full of belongings are simply glad not to be carrying any of it.

More often than not we hold the car in Oxford across the day instead of running two separate journeys, the city being small and the parking anything but. Ceremonies overrun, lunches stretch, and a car standing nearby settles the matter. Return timings can stay loose and be confirmed on the day by message; all we ask for at booking is a rough window.