A floating tap pours an unending stream of water into a pond at the Cedar Hollow Illusion Trail
Cedar Hollow · Eastern Woods, Oxford

The Illusion Trail

At Cedar Hollow, reality bends and wonder takes root.

An outdoor trail of wonder

The Magic of the Eastern Woods

Illusions and enchanted props throughout our grounds transform everyday moments into memorable experiences. A self-aware mirror, a wardrobe hiding secrets, distorting woodland furniture, a floating head, a magical wand, and sentient paintings. Among natural features you'll find carvings of fauns and forest spirits, intentional design that evokes forgotten tales and hidden enchantment.

Two people demonstrating the Beuchet Chair illusion. One sits tiny on the seat while the other stands giant beside the chair

Beuchet Chair

Step into a world where scale slips and logic softens. Sit and you shrink; stand and you tower. Storybook moments, all from a single chair.

How to capture it
A disembodied head appears under a glass dome on a wooden table in the woods

Head on a Plate

Slide beneath the glass and your body disappears, leaving only your head, floating on a platter as if conjured for an enchanted feast.

How to capture it
A young man sits cross-legged in mid-air in a sunlit woodland, holding a tall wooden staff, with no visible support beneath him

Floating Staff

Rest on the staff and gravity quietly forgets you. The sensation is weightless, caught hovering between the forest floor and the canopy above.

How to capture it
Looking down into a deep brick well that appears to descend forever, lit by glowing lanterns

The Bottomless Well

Peer over the edge into a brick well that descends impossibly deep, its lanterns receding into a vanishing point that should not exist.

How to capture it

Cloak of Invisibility

Draw the green cloak around you and watch our app erase whatever it covers. Step into a telephone box, a Narnia lamp, anywhere the magic permits.

How to use it

Hollow Face

A mask carved inward, painted to feel as though it sticks out. Walk past, and its eyes will follow you no matter where you go.

How to experience it
The True Mirror at the Illusion Trail

The True Mirror

Two mirrors at right angles, joined down the middle. Look in and you finally meet yourself the way the rest of the world has always seen you.

How to experience it
A brass tap appears to float in mid-air at the Illusion Trail, with water pouring endlessly from it into a small pond below

The Floating Tap

A brass tap hangs unsupported above the pond, pouring an endless stream of water. The pipe is in the water itself, hidden in plain sight.

How to experience it
Walk the trail

Plan your visit

The Illusion Trail winds through the Eastern Woods at Cedar Hollow, our home of enchantment in Oxford. Open to overnight guests and event visitors.