Alice's Day

The Story Museum

10:00-17:30 Half Price entry to The Story Museum Galleries and Small Worlds
Advance booking essential.

The Story Museum will be offering half price entry to visit its interactive galleries and an opportunity to go on your own adventure in Snarks and Riddles – the boardgame! Designed by The Story Museum’s young Story Curators, visitors will find themselves immersed in a beautifully designed, life-size adventure game inspired by the story worlds of Lewis Carroll. And don’t miss the chance to book a place at The Story Museum’s giant Wonderland Afternoon Tea, taking place in the Museum’s Magic Common Room. Indulge in delicious cakes, sandwiches and savouries freshly made by the café team.

Hunt the Snark: poems, riddles and nonsense

Where: The Story Museum
When: 10:30-13:30
Tickets: FREE with entry to Galleries

Join Maya and Ruth from Oxford Poetry Library for a drop-in poetry tea party! Make up nonsense rhymes, invent fantastical creatures, and play with words.

Snarks and Riddles!

Where: The Story Museum
When: 11:00-16:00
Tickets: FREE with entry to Galleries

Get ready for brillig beasts and games galore! Set out on a quest with our Snarks and Riddles game, an immersive installation inspired by the imaginary worlds of Lewis Carroll. Enter a giant games board and adventure through the mini worlds of Wonderland, Snark Island, the Tulgey Woods and The Looking Glass Garden – along the way you will answer riddles, solve puzzles, meet curious creatures, seek advice from a caterpillar and much more!

Snarks and Riddles was conceived and designed by Story Curators, a team of budding designers age 11-16 working with The Story Museum to develop skills in immersive exhibitions. Find out more about the programme here: Story Shapers | The Story Museum

Included with entry to the Galleries.

Return to Wonderland - author event with Anna James

Where: The Story Museum
When: 14:30-15:30
Tickets: FREE but booking is necessary! (Ages 5+)

Return to Wonderland with children's author Anna James in this interactive, chatty event to celebrate her latest book, Alice with a Why! Anna will talk about the inspiration for the book and her relationship with Alice in Wonderland and invite young readers to join in with a true or false game, a writing activity to create their own wonderland tea party story, and help come up with some entries for Anna's nonsense dictionary.
There will be a book signing opportunity at the end of event.

Find out more and book tickets here

Wonderland Tea

Where: The Magic Common Room at The Story Museum
When: 13:30-14:30, 15:00-16:00 & 16:30-17:30
Tickets: £24.95 per adult/£14.95 per child. Advance booking essential (booking closes on 2 July). To book your place, email our Café team

Enjoy a luxury Wonderland-themed tea in our beautiful Magic Common Room.

Our Alice-inspired Wonderland teas are available for pre-booking. Guests enjoy a delicious menu of sandwiches and cakes. Dressing up is encouraged! Tickets cost £24.95 per adult/£14.95 per child. Feeling fancy? Add a mini bottle of prosecco for an additional £8. To book your place, email our team.

Wonderland Face Painting

Where: The Story Museum Courtyard
When: 14:00-16:00 (queue closes at 15:30)
Tickets: FREE drop-in

Get in the Wonderland mood with our free face painting - just drop into our beautiful courtyard and we'll do the rest! Please note the queue will close at 15:30.

Magic Lantern Talk

Where: Christ Church (meet at The Story Museum)
When: 10:00-10:30 (arrive at museum 09:45), 11:00-11:30 (arrive at museum 10:45), 12:00-12:30 (arrive at museum 11:45), 13:00-13:30 (arrive at museum 12:45), 14:00-14:30 (arrive at museum 13:45), 15:00-15:30 (arrive at museum 14:45)
Tickets: £5 per person. Advance booking essential. Book here.

Experience a Victorian magic lantern show, as Phillip Roberts introduces you to a Magic Lantern, a 19th century storytelling device used by travelling entertainers. Phillip will use a modified late-nineteenth century lantern with original Lewis Carroll slides from Christ Church’s collections. Not to be missed! Please meet at The Story Museum 15 minutes before your event start time. Groups will be accompanied to Christ Church. Advance booking is essential.

Learn to Play Croquet with Eynsham Croquet Club

Where: Christ Church (meet at The Story Museum)
When: 14:00-14:30 (arrive at museum 13:45), 14:45-15:15 (arrive at museum 14:30) & 15:30-16:00 (arrive at museum 15:15)
Tickets: £3 per person. Advance booking essential. Book here.

A rare opportunity to learn Croquet with Eynsham Croquet Club in the beautiful setting of the Masters' Garden at Christ Church, a setting that remains unchanged since Lewis Carroll's time. In partnership with the Oxford Children's Book Group.

Maximum 8 people per session. Advance booking is essential. £3 per person. Please arrive promptly at The Story Museum ticket office where you will be taken to Christ Church.

Image credit: By permission of the Governing Body, Christ Church, Oxford

Meet characters from Alice in Wonderland! by Creation Theatre

Where: The Story Museum, Pembroke Street, and Westgate Oxford
When: 12:00-13:00, 14:15-15:00, 15:30-16:30
Tickets: FREE

Come and meet the curious characters from Alice in Wonderland! Help Alice find the White Rabbit around Westgate, have a cup of tea with the Mad Hatter, and ensure you have painted the roses red and bow down to the Red Queen herself!

Characters will emerge from The Story Museum, before making their way up Pembroke Street and around the Westgate.
12:00-13:00
14:15-15:00
15:30-16:30

For your best chance of a photo with the characters, head to the Westgate.

Jabberwocky! by Rough Magic Theatre

Where: Westgate Oxford
When: 11:00-11:30, 12:00-12:30, 13:30-14:00
Tickets: FREE drop-in

Beware the Jabberwock!
Rough Magic Theatre brings Lewis Carroll’s epic nonsense poem to magical life! Using shadow puppetry and live singing this is an enchanting and unusual performance for all ages! Featuring our unique Shadow Puppet Suitcase Theatre - a delightful miniature theatre which really does bring the show to you!

Takes place in the Satellite Space, by Trill Mill Lane in the Westgate.
11:00 - 11:30
12:00 - 12:30
13:30 - 14:00

Alice's Day at Westgate Oxford

Where: Westgate Oxford
When: 10:30-16:30
Tickets: FREE drop-in

Visit Westgate Oxford and see Alice's Day come to life, with characters and performances taking place throughout the day. Wonderland craft will be available in the Satellite Space, by Trill Mill Lane and why not take part in the Hatter's Hunt trail!

Hands-on history! Alice's Day Edition

Where: Museum of Oxford
When: 11:00-15:00
Tickets: FREE drop-in

Come and have a go at handling some of our museum objects at our Alice’s Day, special edition of the hands-on history drop-in session!

Our volunteers will help you to touch, feel and handle objects ranging from teapots to photographs. You’ll also get to learn about the stories behind the objects and how they connect to Alice’s story.

Hands-on History! Alice's Day Edition - Museum of Oxford

Down the Razzamataz Rabbit Hole

Where: Museum of Oxford
When: 14:15-15:15, 15:30-16:30
Tickets: £4 (please book with the Museum of Oxford here)

Rhymes, Riddles & Musical Mischief. A high-energy Wonderland inspired adventure of singing, dancing and storytelling.

In this 45-minute Razzamataz theatre workshop, children will tumble down the rabbit hole into a playful Wonderland full of madcap characters, curious rhymes, silly riddles and musical mayhem.

Through song, dance and imaginative storytelling, pupils will explore Alice in Wonderland–inspired music, bring nonsense poems to life, and create their own quirky characters - all while building confidence, creativity and performance skills.

Packed with movement, music and magical moments, this fast-paced session encourages teamwork, self-expression and lots of fun, making it perfect for primary-aged children of all abilities. No experience needed - just curiosity, energy and a love of a little bit of nonsense!

14:15-15:15 (ages 5-8)
15:30-16:30 (ages 9-12)

Down the Razzamataz Rabbit Hole - Museum of Oxford

Alice's Wonderland Adventures

Where: History of Science Museum
When: 10:30-12:30
Tickets: FREE

Help Alice find the White Rabbit in a fun gallery-based game. Get the answer right at each museum object to move your figure on the board game and unlock the next question. Answering all the questions leads to finding the white rabbit and a sticker!

You can also pick up a paper Alice trail and discover more objects in the Museum linked to Alice’s story.

Suitable for ages 6+

Alice's Day Talks and film from the Lewis Carroll Society: Lewis Carroll’s ‘Useful and Instructive’ limericks with Mark Davies

Where: The Weston Library
When: 10:45-11:25
Tickets: FREE drop-in

As 2026 marks 150 years since the publication of ‘The Snark’, the Weston Library will be hosting a series of talks and a film themed around Nonsense Poetry from the Lewis Carroll Society.

Lewis Carroll’s ‘Useful and Instructive’ limericks with Mark Davies, Lewis Carroll Society
Four limericks by Lewis Carroll which were recently discovered by the speaker are unusual and revealing because they relate to real people. The Oxford acquaintances in question were tactfully unidentified, so it was a riddle of sorts to deduce that one of them has particularly intimate Wonderland associations. Carroll had first experimented with the humorous five-line format in a family magazine he produced as a boy, even before Edward Lear popularised the concept.

Image: The 'raw Don' Osborne Gordon, photographed by Lewis Carroll in 1857.

Alice's Day Talks and Film | Visit the Bodleian Libraries

“Say ‘How D’Ye Do?’ and Shake Hands” with Matt Crandall

Where: The Weston Library
When: 11:30-12:10
Tickets: FREE drop-in

“Say ‘How D’Ye Do?’ and Shake Hands” with Matt Crandall, Disney Alice collector and author

How Lewis Carroll’s verses helped Walt Disney sell Alice in Wonderland. On the 75th anniversary of Walt Disney’s animated film, an exploration of the songs inspired by verse and text from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass, and their importance to the film’s marketing and merchandise.

Alice's Day Talks and Film | Visit the Bodleian Libraries

Lewis Carroll, Darwin, and The Hunting of the Snark with Stephen Thetford

Where: The Weston Library
When: 12:15-12:55
Tickets: FREE drop-in

Lewis Carroll, Darwin, and The Hunting of the Snark with Stephen Thetford, Lewis Carroll Society
Starting with a copy of The Annotated Snark in 1974, the speaker has spent years discovering the historical and scientific background to Lewis Carroll's wonderful 'nonsense' poem. The motley crew going on a Snark hunt mimic the Pickwickian comic gentlemen of Dickens, sailing on a quest that parodies Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle. Carroll's illustrator, Henry Holiday, was an experienced science artist who could caricature Victorian explorations such as the survey of the World's oceans by HMS Challenger. Together they created a masterpiece.

Alice's Day Talks and Film | Visit the Bodleian Libraries

Viewing of 'The Hunting of the Snark' (2023 film) plus Q&A with the Director

Where: The Weston Library
When: 13:45-15:30
Tickets: FREE drop-in

As 2026 marks 150 years since the publication of ‘The Snark’, the Weston Library will be hosting a series of talks themed around Nonsense Poetry from the Lewis Carroll Society (see above), as well as a special screening of the 2023 film ‘The Hunting of the Snark’ by Simon DaVison.

The Hunting of the Snark: a 2023 film by Simon DaVison
‘The Hunting of the Snark’ is a feature film based on Lewis Carroll’s follow-up to the Alice books. Set on a tropical island it is a brilliant, wonderland mix of nonsense, twisted logic and surreal adventure. It also has at its core a powerful and emotional quest - the human search for meaning and an understanding of the universe. What is the Snark? Why is it always so elusive? The film stars Ramon Tikaram (‘Kaos’, ‘Game of Thrones’) and Corinne Furman (‘Fisherman's Friends’).

Alice's Day Talks and Film | Visit the Bodleian Libraries

Lewis Carroll Society Social Gathering

Where: The Head of the River (Folly Bridge, OX1 4LB)
When: 15:45
Tickets: FREE

Informal social gathering for LCS members, but all welcome. Come and learn more about the Society, and discuss the day's highlights close to the very location from which the fateful boat trip of 4 July 1862 departed.

Events - The Lewis Carroll Society

The Old Sheep's Snarky Voyage

Where: Alice's Shop (start outside The Independent Cafe, on the corner of St Aldates and Clarks Row - just across from Alice's Shop!)
When: 11:00-16:00
Tickets: FREE

Help the Old Sheep and her curious crew search for the most mysterious creature ever whispered about in Lewis Carroll's books: The Snark! But beware: other creatures have been seen there too!

Alice’s Shop invites you to a delightful family-friendly adventure this Alice’s Day - join the Old Sheep and her eccentric crew on a most peculiar Hunt for the Snark!

Your mission is to journey through eight curious stations filled with riddles, rhymes, and remarkable challenges. At each stop, you’ll earn a clue. Collect them all, crack the code — and you may uncover what strange creature has truly been captured upon this island…

Meet Susanna Johnston, author of The Secret of the Snark

Where: Alice's Shop
When: 11:00-12:00, 14:30-15:30
Tickets: FREE

Lewis Carroll's famous absurdist poem, The Hunting of the Snark, has puzzled readers for 150 years.
Susanna Johnston's compelling new analysis reveals the meaning Carroll hid in his 'nonsense'. Come and meet the author and discover for yourself The Secret of the Snark. For families.

Alice's Day at The Weston

Where: The Weston Library
When: 11:00-15:00
Tickets: FREE drop-in

Adventure into Wonderland with Oxford’s annual celebration of all things Alice. The Weston Library will be hosting storytelling from Lucy Walters, as well as creative crafts and our famous flamingo croquet! Storytelling will take place at 11:30, 12:30 & 14:00.

Craft activities are most suitable for children aged 4–11, but all are welcome.

This event is free, with no booking required – just drop in.

Alice's Day at the Weston | Visit the Bodleian Libraries

Image credit: Ian Wallman/Bodleian Libraries

Alice's Day with WhatNot Theatre: Tea Time with Hatter & Hare

Where: Oxford Botanic Garden
When: 11:00-11:45, 14:00-14:45
Tickets: Book here

This Alice Day, WhatNot Theatre invites you to a new topsy-turvy twist on the Wonderland adventure. Join our delightfully whimsical duo as they tumble down the rabbit hole back into the Oxford Botanic Garden with another madcap tea party packed with playful riddles, costume chaos, and quite peculiar storytelling. Along the way, we’ll encounter familiar faces: a grinning Cheshire Cat, a flustered White Rabbit, a contemplative Caterpillar, and a random Lobster.

Teatime with Hatter & Hare is an open-air, relaxed, inclusive family performance where the audience becomes part of the tale; promising frolicsome fun for curious minds of all ages. Bring your picnic blanket, an umbrella, and a jam sandwich or two; Hatter loves a nibble!

Show times: 11:00 and 14:00

Your ticket includes entry to the Garden so you can arrive before the performance for which you are booked and stay as long as you like afterwards. Please note this event is outside so come prepared for all weather.

Garden opening times: 10am – 6pm (last entry 5pm)

Alice's Christ Church Meadow Walk

Where: Christ Church Meadow
When:
11:00-12:30 - Book in advance
14:00-15:30 - Book in advance
Tickets: £10 per person.

An Alice’s Day extra: a leisurely walk around beautiful Christ Church Meadow with local historian, author and Lewis Carroll trustee Mark Davies.

The circular route will follow waterside paths familiar to the real Alice (daughter of the Dean of Christ Church) and Lewis Carroll, who taught and lived all his adult life at the college. Based partly on his own research, Mark will highlight in particular the all-important role of the River Thames in the creation of 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking-Glass'.

With reference to the wider historical and geographical context, as well as other classics of fantasy fiction, the tour will also reveal real Oxford people as the inspiration for some of the characters, and places and events which shaped some episodes in both books. The walk does NOT include entrance to the college of Christ Church itself.
Please note that as this walk is designed primarily for adults and older children, there is no charge for primary-age children. Wheelchair users are welcome with prior notice. This is a ticketed event: cost per person is £10. Walks begin at the Alice's Shop.

Oxford Water Walks