Car-less Itinerary with Kids

Oxford and York. Easy to get to by rail. My boys loved the railway museum in York.

Yes,
Oxford and York are great. York is special, walk the ancient walls, visit the Munster and the great Railway Museum.

I loved Stratford Upon Avon, but I am a big Shakespeare fan.

Definately York.
Real city walls you can walk along and real city gates you can climb up on where they really did shoot arrows from (and put traitor's heads on pikes. Perfect for a 7-year-old boy.
Old streets, railway museum.

website: https://little-vikings.co.uk/the-best-50-things-for-kids-to-do-in-york/
and: https://little-vikings.co.uk/things-to-do-for-free-york/
and: http://www.yorkwalls.org.uk/?page_id=3690

Thanks to all for the information. York is on my wish list, but the convenience of Chester is tempting. Especially considering the weather that time of year, I assume it is going to be rainy and cool in early March?

Regarding day trips from Chester, is North Wales easy to explore on foot or city bus? I had read Wales is a little more challenging for that purpose.

As for Bath, would it be best for us to find a day coach tour of Stonehenge? We would like to go very much.

There's not going to be any discernable difference between the weather in Chester and the weather in York, in fact the more west you are the more the likelihood of rain although even then there's still going to be very little in it, if it's raining in Chester there's a good chance that it'll be raining in York or certainly not long after. March can be chilly, cold, freezing, snowing, sunny, warm or heatwave. It depends on the position of the Jet Stream primarily and also wind direction, pressure fronts etc. The weather in the UK is so difficult to predict because we're a northern bunch of islands that theoretically, because of our latitude it would normally be expected to be colder than it is but because we benefit from the warm waters of the Gulf Stream it makes out climate more in keeping with one expected from a country located further south. However, it also means that we're heavily influenced by the Atlantic and the climate is one that is very maritime rather than continental and is therefore very unpredicatable.

Just out of curiosity why avoid London? It has everything you say you like.

Kelly, thanks for asking. I have traveled to London twice before (but not the rest of the country). We don’t have a big travel budget and I regretted not seeing the rest of England on previous trips, so this one simply has a different focus.

Gotcha! Happy travels elsewhere besides London! :)