Boars Hill is a hamlet 3 miles (5 km) southwest of Oxford, straddling the boundary between the civil parishes of Sunningwell and Wootton.

It consists of about 360 dwellings spread over an area of nearly two square miles as shown on this map from the long established Boars Hill Association.

Until the late 19th century the hill was almost bare and had fine views - northwards to the city of Oxford, southwards to the Downs and westwards to the upper Thames valley.

At that time many houses were built on Boars Hill, and the new residents planted trees and erected fences and walls; within a few decades they had hidden the celebrated views from all but a few places.

In his diary for 1841, edited by Anthony Kenny, he describes how a walk across the hill inspired the ninth of his 'Blank misgivings of a creature moving about in worlds not realized'; however, he was concerned over his family's financial straits and his impending final exams, and he found the barrenness of the scene under a grey February sky depressing.

[6] Other notable residents were the sculptor Oscar Nemon who fled from Nazi rule in Vienna in 1938, and the archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans who lived on Boars Hill from 1894 until his death in 1941.

[8] The political scientist and public servant W. G. S. Adams lived there, at a house called Powder Hill, and entertained Horace Plunkett, Sir William Beveridge, Gilbert Murray, John Masefield and Robert Bridges.

[12] Sir Frederick Keeble, FRS and his wife, the noted actress Lillah McCarthy built a house, Hammels, from old timbers and lived there in the 1920s.

The college attracted controversy due to alleged links to Oxford University[16] and was eventually sued with the site repossessed.

In contrast, Sebastian Flyte describes a model student at Oxford as one who "smokes a great pipe and plays hockey and goes out to tea on Boar's Hill and to lectures at Keble...".