Bablock Hythe is a hamlet in Oxfordshire, England, some five miles (8 km) west of Oxford city centre.
There was a ferry across the River Thames at Bablock Hythe from the 13th century.
The hand-propelled cable ferry was said to be the first along the Thames and was still in use for cars and other road vehicles up until 1959.
[2] There was also an ancient inn, described by William Senior in his Royal River in the 1880s.
[4] [5] The poet Matthew Arnold described the area in his 1853 work "The Scholar Gipsy":