An accident at home forces CHRIS KOENIG to tour some of Oxfordshire's more intriguing sights

Here is a piece of information which might interest the odd reader: "Fire in Milton-under-Wychwood, no one much hurt." Well, perhaps not.

The occurrence got me thinking though, not least because it was my wife and I who were the two people smoked out of house and home in the middle of Thursday night last week. Now we are condemned to live a sort of peripatetic existence, hopping from pub to pub accommodation until a rented place can be found for us at the insurer's expense.

When does history become history, I asked myself? A week later, or a decade, or 50 years? And will an event so minor to the world at large, and yet so large to us personally, ever count as history?

Such deep questions apart, in a dream-like state we wandered the county, almost oblivious of time and space. First stop, in the very early morning after a night in the car, was a walk in Bruern Woods, possibly a fragment of the original Royal Forest of Wychwood.

Extraordinary views along Gainsborough-like rides to the perfect 18th-century Bruern Abbey, until recently inhabited by the Astors but now the property of a member of the Bamford family (owners of the manufacturers of JCBs and of Daylesford House, itself once the property of Warren Hastings.) Bruern Abbey is built on the site of a Cistercian monastery dating from the 12th century. Apt that, because our next stop was to check in at the lovely Shaven Crown Hotel in Shipton-under-Wychwood; reputedly Oxfordshire's oldest pub and, once upon a time, I am told, a hostelry run by the monks of Bruern. Earlier in the day, a firefighter had addresssed Anne, my wife, thus: "Madam, you're black." (So smoke blackened were we two waifs and strays). But, despite our appearance, the owner, Philip Mehrtens, and his staff were the very model of discreet tact and kindness.

Our room, the apparently haunted number 11, was towards the end of the Second World War, the enforced residence of British fascist party leader Sir Oswald Mosley, who was kept under house arrest in the chamber.

The room's most remarkable feature is a huge 1930s brass chandelier with red velvet column connecting it to the ceiling; at which, presumably, Mosley must have stared as he lay disconsolately in his bed.

Such touches abound in this inn, probably my favourite in the county; not so much shabby chic as just plain shabby, but beautifully so: lovely pieces of ersatz 1920s' monastic architecture, side by side with wonderful examples of the real thing. High time a detailed architectural survey was carried out on this remarkable building.

Next stop was a trip to Woodstock in the autumn sunshine. More or less opposite the Black Prince pub, named after Edward of Woodstock — otherwise known as the Black Prince, son of Edward III — who was born in a house nearby in 1330 — we came across a sign on a cottage informing us that the first Blenheim Orange Apple had been grown in the garden by George Kempster, who died in 1775. Apt that, too, since not long before we had picked up apples fallen from a tree, and discussed the absurdity of New Zealand apples being sold in supermarkets in such a very good British apple year as this.

Our fire had been caused by a (presumably) faulty tumble drier. A chance late-night telephone call woke us up — otherwise we would have been found dead in our bed from acrid smoke inhalation. The event was, I suppose, not dissimilar to the fire in Churchill in the reign of Charles II when a hearth fire destroyed the village. Hearths, of course, were used for drying clothes.