| Banbury | |
|---|---|
| Market town | |
   Clockwise, from top:Banbury Town Hall; The Fine Lady statue and Banbury Cross; Banbury Market Place | |
  Banbury Location withinOxfordshire | |
| Area | 21.04 km2 (8.12 sq mi) |
| Population | 54,335 (Parish, 2021)[1] 52,045 (Built up area, 2021)[2] |
| OS grid reference | SP4540 |
| • London | 64 mi (103 km) SE |
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | BANBURY |
| Postcode district | OX16 |
| Dialling code | 01295 |
| Police | Thames Valley |
| Fire | Oxfordshire |
| Ambulance | South Central |
| UK Parliament | |
| Website | www |
| |
Banbury is an historicmarket town andcivil parish on theRiver Cherwell inOxfordshire, South East England. The parish had a population of 54,335 at the 2021 Census.
Banbury is a significant commercial and retail centre for the surrounding area of north Oxfordshire and southern parts ofWarwickshire andNorthamptonshire which are predominantly rural. Banbury's main industries are motorsport, car components, electrical goods, plastics, food processing and printing. Banbury is home to theJacobs Douwe Egberts factory which was previously the world's largest coffee-producing facility, built in 1964. The town is famed forBanbury cakes, a spiced sweet pastry.
Banbury is located 64 miles (103 km) north-west ofLondon, 37 miles (60 km) south-east ofBirmingham, 27 miles (43 km) south-east ofCoventry and 22 miles (35 km) north-northwest ofOxford.
The name Banbury may derive from "Banna", a Saxon chieftain said to have built a stockade there in the6th century (or possibly abyname fromOld English:bana meaningfelon,murderer[3]), andburgh /burh meaningsettlement.[4][5] InAnglo Saxon it was calledBanesburh (dativeBanesbyrig).[6][7] The name appears asBanesberie in theDomesday Book of 1086.[6][7] Another known spelling wasBanesebury in medieval times.
Archaeological evidence has been found for aBritish Iron Age settlement with circular buildings, dating back to 200 BC, in the Hennef Way area. Later there was aRoman villa at Wykham Park.[6][8]
The area was settled by theSaxons around the late 5th century.[6] It was a local centre for Anglo-Saxon settlement by the mid-6th century.[6] Banbury developed in theAnglo-Saxon period[8] underDanish influence, starting in the late 6th century. It was assessed at 50 hides in the Domesday survey and was then held by theBishop of Lincoln.
The Saxons built Banbury on the west bank of the River Cherwell. On the opposite bank they builtGrimsbury, which was formerly part ofNorthamptonshire. Another district,Neithrop, is one of the oldest areas in Banbury, having first been recorded as ahamlet in the 13th century.[9][10]
Banbury stands at the junction of two ancient roads: Salt Way (used as a bridle path to the west and south of the town), its primary use being transport of salt; and Banbury Lane, which began near Northampton and is closely followed by the modern 22-mile-long (35 km) road. It continued through what is now Banbury's High Street and towards theFosse Way atStow-on-the-Wold. Banbury'smedieval prosperity was based onwool.
Banbury Castle was built from 1135 byAlexander, Bishop of Lincoln, and survived into theCivil War in the 1640s, when it was besieged.[11]
During the Civil War, due to its proximity toOxford, the King's capital, Banbury was at one stage a Royalist town, but the inhabitants were known to be stronglyPuritan. The town later became pro-Parliamentarian, but the castle was manned by aRoyalist garrison who supportedKing Charles I. The Reindeer Inn (now 'Ye Olde Reine Deer Inn') was reputedly used as a base byOliver Cromwell, particularly in preparing for theBattle of Edge Hill in 1642.[12][13] In 1645,Parliamentary troops were billeted in nearbyHanwell for nine weeks and villagers petitioned the Warwickshire Committee of Accounts to pay for feeding them.[14] The castle was demolished after the war.[15]
The opening of theOxford Canal fromHawkesbury Junction to Banbury on 30 March 1778 gave the town a cheap and reliable supply ofWarwickshire coal.[16] In 1787 the Oxford Canal was extended southwards,[17] finally opening to Oxford on 1 January 1790.[18] The canal's main boat yard was the original outlay of today'sTooley's Boatyard.[19] The railway reached Banbury in 1850;Merton Street station on theBuckinghamshire Railway toBletchley opened in May 1850, followed byBridge Street station, later renamed Banbury General, on theGreat Western Railway in September 1850.[20]
People's Park was set up as a private park in 1890 and opened in 1910, along with the adjacentbowling green.
The land south of the New Foscote Hospital inCalthorpe andEasington Farm were mostly open farmland until the early 1960s.[21] TheRuscote estate, which now has a notable South Asian community, was expanded in the 1950s because of the growth of the town due to theLondon overspill and further grew in the mid-1960s.
British Railways closedMerton Street railway station and the Buckingham to Banbury line to passenger traffic at the end of 1960. Merton Street goods depot continued to handle livestock traffic for Banbury's cattle market until 1966, when this too was discontinued and the railway dismantled. In March 1962 SirJohn Betjeman celebrated the line from Culworth Junction in his poemGreat Central Railway, Sheffield Victoria to Banbury. British Railways closed this line too in 1966.
The main railway station, previously called Banbury General but now called simplyBanbury, is now served by trains running fromLondon Paddington viaReading andOxford once daily, fromLondon Marylebone viaHigh Wycombe andBicester onwards toBirmingham andKidderminster and by CrossCountry Trains fromBournemouth and Reading toBirmingham,Manchester andNewcastle.
Banbury used to have a largecattle market.[22] Situated on Merton Street inGrimsbury, for many decades, cattle and other farm animals weredriven there on the hoof from as far asScotland to be sold to feed the growing population of London and other towns. Since its closure in June 1998, a new housing development and Dashwood Primary School has been built on its site. The estate, which lies between Banbury andHanwell, was built on the grounds of Hanwell Farm during 2005 and 2006.
The name 'Banburyshire' is sometimes used informally to describe the area centred on Banbury, claimed to include parts ofNorthamptonshire andWarwickshire as well as northOxfordshire. Use of the term dates from the early to mid 19th century. It was common in the 19th century formarket towns in England to describe theirhinterland by tacking "shire" onto the town's name.[23] "Stones Map of Banburyshire" held by the Centre of Banbury Studies was published in the 1870s or 1880s[24] and it asserted that the term originated in the 1830s[25] but no source is given for that assertion. In the 1850s magazine articles used "Banburyshire" or the hyphenated term "Banbury-shire".[26] The Banburyshire Natural History Society was formed in 1881.[27]In the 20th century a number of books used the term "Banburyshire" in their titles, dating from the early 1960s.[28][29][30][31]
The county of Oxfordshire has two main commercial centres, the city of Oxford itself that serves most of the south of the county, and Banbury that serves the north (such asAdderbury,Cropredy,Deddington,Wroxton,Great Bourton, andBloxham) plus parts of the neighbouring counties ofNorthamptonshire andWarwickshire.[25][32][33][34][35]
There are three tiers of local government covering Banbury, atcivil parish (town),district, andcounty level: Banbury Town Council,Cherwell District Council, andOxfordshire County Council. The town council is based atBanbury Town Hall on Bridge Street.[36]
Banbury was anancient parish. The parish historically straddled the boundary between Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire, which followed the River Cherwell. The Oxfordshire part of the parish (west of the river) included the town itself and thehamlets ofNeithrop,Calthorpe,Easington,Hardwick, andWykham. The Northamptonshire part of the parish (east of the river) included the hamlets ofGrimsbury andNethercote.[37][38]
In 1554,Mary I issued a charter which incorporated the town as aborough. Prior to that, it had been a lower statusseigneurial borough, controlled by the Bishop of Lincoln aslord of the manor.[39] Mary's charter defined a borough boundary matching the parish, but the borough later came to be defined as a much smaller area, just covering the urban area as it then was.[40]
From the 17th century onwards, parishes were gradually given various civil functions under thepoor laws, in addition to their original ecclesiastical functions. In some cases, including Banbury, the civil functions were exercised by subdivisions of the parish rather than the parish as a whole.[41] In Banbury's case, the parish was split into three parts for administering the poor laws: the area of the borough, the remainder of the Oxfordshire part of the parish (known as thetownship of Neithrop), and the Northamptonshire part of the parish. The latter part was jointly administered with the neighbouring parish ofWarkworth.[42][38] In 1866, the legal definition of 'parish' was changed to be the areas used for administering the poor laws, and so the oldecclesiastical parish of Banbury (which retained its church functions) diverged from thecivil parishes of Banbury (just covering the borough), Neithrop and Warkworth.[43]
The borough was reformed to become amunicipal borough in 1836 under theMunicipal Corporations Act 1835, which standardised how most boroughs operated across the country.[44] The borough's powers were primarily judicial rather than providing public services for the growing town. In order to provide services and infrastructure, the whole ecclesiastical parish of Banbury was made alocal board district in 1852, with the local board being responsible for sewers, public health, and other aspects of local government.[45] The borough corporation and the local board then existed alongside each other, with their differently defined areas and roles, until 1889.[39]
In 1889, following theLocal Government Act 1888, the Northamptonshire parts of the local board district (Grimsbury and Nethercote) were transferred to Oxfordshire, and the local board's functions were transferred to the borough corporation, with the borough being enlarged to cover the whole of the old local board district.[46][47][48] The borough council met at Banbury Town Hall until 1930, when it moved its offices and meetings to the former Municipal Technical School (built 1893) on Marlborough Road.[49][50]
The municipal borough of Banbury was abolished in 1974 under theLocal Government Act 1972, with its area becoming part of the new Cherwell district.[51][52]
Nosuccessor parish was created for Banbury at the time of the 1974 reforms and so it becameunparished; instead, the Cherwell councillors who represented wards in Banbury acted ascharter trustees to preserve the town's civic traditions, including appointing one of them to take the title of mayor each year. A number of roads are named after former mayors, including Mascord Road, Mold Crescent and Fairfax Close.[53] A new civil parish of Banbury was created in 2000, with its parish council taking the name Banbury Town Council. Since then, the chair of the town council has taken the title of mayor.[54]
Banbury is in the Cherwell Valley with many hills in and around the town. Apart from the town centre, much of Banbury is on a slope and each entry into the town is downhill. Estates such asBretch Hill and Hardwick are built on top of a hill and much of the town can be seen from both. Other notable hills include the suburban,Crouch Hill and the more central Pinn Hill, and Strawberry Hill on the outskirts of Easington. Mine Hill and Rye Hill lie, along with many others, to the northeast, southeast and west of Banbury.
Banbury is located at the bank of theRiver Cherwell which sweeps through the town, going just east of the town centre withGrimsbury being the only estate east of the river. Banbury is at the northern extreme of the UK'sSouth East England region, less than two miles (3 km) from the boundary with theEast Midlands, and three miles (5 km) from that with theWest Midlands. As such it has close cultural links with neighbouring Midlands towns such asStratford-upon-Avon,Leamington Spa, andWarwick.
In 1998 and 2007, Banbury was subject to heavy flooding due to its location by the River Cherwell. Heavyclay andIronstone deposits surround Banbury.[55]
Destinations from Banbury | |
|---|---|
TheDomesday Book in 1086 listed three mills, with a total fiscal value of 45shillings, on theBishop of Lincoln'sdemesne lands, and a fourth which was leased to Robert son of Waukelin by the Bishop. Among Banbury's fourMedieval mills was probably a forerunner of Banbury Mill, first referred to by this name in 1695.[56] In 1279, Laurence of Hardwick was also paying 3 marks (equivalent to 40 shillings) in annual rent to the Bishop for a mill in the then Hardwick hamlet.[56] The forerunners of Butchers Row were probably long standing butchers' stalls which were known to be in situ by 1438.[56] The old VictorianCorn Exchange is now used as an entrance to a shopping centre.[57]
The Northern Aluminium Co. Ltd. orAlcan Industries Ltd. pig and rolled aluminium factory was opened in 1931 on land acquired in 1929 on the east of the Southam road, in the then hamlet of Hardwick. The various Alcan facilities on the 53-acre site closed between 2006 and 2007.[56] The factory was demolished between 2008 and 2009. The laboratory was also closed in 2004 and is now used as offices for numerous companies.[56][58][59][60][61] Another major employer isJacobs Douwe Egberts, which producesinstant coffee. The facility moved to Banbury fromBirmingham in 1965.[56]
In the central area were built many large shops, a bus station, and a large car park north of Castle Street. In 1969 proposals for the redevelopment of the central area were in hand, leading to the creation of the Castle shopping centre in 1977 (the centre was later combined into the Castle Quay centre). The 1977 plans to build amulti-storey car park on what is now the open air car park behindMatalan andPoundland were scrapped in 1978 and another one was built to the rear of the Castle Shopping Centre in 1978.[49]
The formerHunt Edmunds brewery premises becameCrest Hotels headquarters, but closed in the late 1970s and was abandoned in the late 1980s, while the Crown Hotel and the Foremost Tyres/Excel Exhausts shops found new owners after they closed in 1976 due to falling sales.Hella, a vehicle electronics firm, closed its factory on the Southam Road in the mid-2000s. Theironmonger, Hoods, opened in the mid-1960s and closed in 2007, with the shop becoming part of the then enlargedMarks and Spencer.
Owing to the surrounding area's notable links with worldmotorsport, the town is home to many well known organisations within the industry.Prodrive, one of the world's largest motorsport and automotive technology specialists, is based in the town as are a host of race teams involved in competition across many different disciplines and countries.
WithinFormula One, two teams have had their base of operations in Banbury. TheSimtek team which competed in the 1994 and 1995 F1 World Championships was based on the Wildmere Industrial Estate. TheMarussia F1 team had its manufacturing and production facility sited on Thorpe Way Industrial Estate using the building formerly owned byAscari Cars, a luxury sports car manufacturer. Both Simtek and Marussia F1 had been brought to Banbury byNick Wirth who owned the Simtek team and was the former Technical Director at Marussia. After Marussia F1 went into administration in 2014, their base was purchased by the United States–basedHaas F1 Team to service their cars during the European races.[62]
Until 2017, when the team went into administration and subsequently folded,Manor Racing (the successor to Marussia) was based in the town.
Arden Motorsport, a British multi-formula motorsports team (founded byRed Bull Racing bossChristian Horner), is also based in the town.
TheFormula E teamsMahindra Racing[63] andAndretti Formula E Team[64] are based in Banbury.
Banbury has one of the UK's lowest unemployment rates, as of April 2016 it stood at 0.7%.[65] Once Poland joined theEuropean Union in 2004, a number of Banbury-basedemployment agencies began advertising for staff in major Polish newspapers. In 2006 one estimate placed between 5,000 and 6,000 Poles in the town. With the influx of the largelyRoman Catholic Poles, one local church was offering aMass said partially in Polish and specialist Polish food shops had opened.[66]
Jacob Douwe Egberts, in theRuscote ward of Banbury, is a large food packaging factory.[67] It was built in 1964 and has gone through a number of ownership changes since. It is still sometimes known by its previous names ofBird's,Kraft andGeneral Foods or GF.
The factory was previously the world's largest coffee-processing facility until coffee production on the site came to an end in 2023. The current owners have announced plans to close the factory in 2026.[68]
Banbury was once home to Western Europe's largest cattle market, on Merton Street in Grimsbury. The market was a key feature ofVictorian life in the town and county. It was formally closed in June 1998, after being abandoned several years earlier and was replaced with a new housing development and Dashwood Primary School.[6]
Banbury railway station is served by three train operating companies:
The town's bus routes are operated primarily byStagecoach in Oxfordshire both within the town and linking it withBrackley,Chipping Norton,Oxford and places further afield includingDaventry,Leamington Spa andStratford-upon-Avon.[72]
Hennef Way (A422) was upgraded to adual carriageway, easing traffic on the heavily congested road and providing north Banbury and the town centre with higher-capacity links to theM40 motorway.
TheOxford Canal is a popular place for pleasure trips and tourism. The canal's main boatyard is now the listed siteTooley's Boatyard.[19]
TheBanbury Guardian is published weekly on Thursdays byJohnston Press, is priced for sale and is a tabloid. TheBanbury Cake was formerly a free newspaper:[73] its print edition ceased publication in 2017 and its website subsequently also closed.
Regional TV news is provided byBBC South andITV Meridian. Television signals received from theOxford TV transmitter,[74] although some parts of the town get a better TV signal from the local relay transmitter which is served byBBC West Midlands andITV Central.[75]
Local radio stations areBBC Radio Oxford,Heart South, andCapital Mid-Counties.Banbury Music Radio was a local Internetradio station.
At one time Banbury had manycrosses (the High Cross, the Bread Cross and the White Cross), but these were destroyed byPuritans in 1600.[8][76] Banbury remained without a cross for more than 250 years until the currentBanbury Cross was erected in 1859 at the centre of the town to commemorate the marriage ofVictoria, Princess Royal (eldest child ofQueen Victoria) toPrince Frederick of Prussia.[49] The current Banbury Cross is a stone, spire-shaped monument decorated inGothic form and designed by theGothic Revival architectJohn Gibbs.[77] Statues of Queen Victoria,Edward VII andGeorge V were added in 1914 to commemorate the coronation of George V. The cross is 52 feet 6 inches (16 m) high, and topped by a gilt cross. Towns with crosses in England before the reformation were places of Christian pilgrimage.
The Englishnursery rhyme "Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross", in its several forms, may refer to one of the crosses destroyed by Puritans in 1600.[76] In April 2005,Princess Anne unveiled a large bronze statue depicting the Fine Lady upon a White Horse of the nursery rhyme.[78] It stands on the corner of West Bar and South Bar, just yards from the present Banbury Cross.
Banbury has a museum in the town centre near Spiceball Park, replacing the old museum near Banbury Cross.[79] It is accessible over a bridge from theCastle Quay Shopping Centre orvia Spiceball Park Road. Admission to the museum is free. The town's tourist information centre is located in the museum entrance in the Castle Quay Shopping Centre.
Tooley's Boatyard was built in 1778 and is a historic site with a nearly 250-year-old blacksmiths' shop and narrow boat dry dock.
Spiceball Park is the largestpark in Banbury. It is east of theOxford Canal, mainly west of theRiver Cherwell, north of Castle Quay and south of Hennef Way. It includes three large fields, a children's play area and a skateboard park. Across the road from the main park there is the sports centre, which includes a swimming pool, courts, café and gym facilities. Thesports centre began to be re-developed in late 2009, for a new centre and café, which was completed by mid 2010.
Neithrop is home to the People's Park which opened in 1910, and has a bird house, tennis courts, a large field and a children's play area. The park is often used in the summer to hold small festivals. The park is also one of the town's biggest in terms of the area covered and one of the few major ones not to be built on a steep hill. Easington Recreation Ground is another principal park and recreational area.
One of the campuses ofActivate Learning, Banbury and Bicester College, as well as one of the international campuses ofFairleigh Dickinson University atWroxton Abbey are situated in Banbury. The town also has four secondary schools –North Oxfordshire Academy,Wykham Park Academy, Space Studio Banbury andBlessed George Napier Roman Catholic School – and a number ofprimary schools. Independent schools in Banbury includeTudor Hall and Al-Madina School.
In 1377 a pardon was given to a Welshman, who was wanted for killing another Welshman, after the accused person had taken sanctuary in St Mary's parish church.[56][81] TheNeithrop district of Banbury was the scene of rioting in 1589 after Neithrop'smaypole was destroyed byPuritans.[82]
Reverend William Whateley (1583–1639), whose father was several timesbailiff or mayor of Banbury, was a notable Banbury vicar, who was instituted in 1610 but had already been a 'lecturer' there for some years. In 1626 Whateley refused communion to his own brother, who had been presented for religious incompetence.[clarification needed] A report by thechurch wardens in 1619 said he was a well liked and tolerant priest.[83] TheQuaker meeting house by the town centre lane called 'The Leys' was built between 1748 and 1750.[84] In 1838, theCatholicSt John the Evangelist Church was built, parts of it were designed byAugustus Pugin and it is a Grade II listed building.[85]
In 1968, St. Joseph the Worker Catholic Church was built on Edmunds Road which was at first a mass centre for St. John's.[86]
At the2021 census there were 54,335 residents in the parish of Banbury, up from 46,853 in the 2011 census, and 41,801 in the 2001 census.[1] The built up area (as defined by theOffice for National Statistics) had a population of 52,045 in 2021.[2]
In terms of ethnicity in 2021:[1]
In terms of religion, 50.6% of Banbury residents identified asChristian, 40.0% said they hadno religion, 6.9% wereMuslim, 0.7% wereHindu, 0.6% wereSikh, 0.6% wereBuddhists, and 0.6% were from another religion.[1]
Banbury has several sporting clubs, most notablyBanbury Unitedfootball club. There are alsorugby (Banbury RUFC),canoeing, golf, running,triathlon andcricket clubs. These clubs represent a variety of age groups, and play at varying levels, from amateur to national.Banbury United F.C. was first formed as Spencer Villa in 1931 and their home matches played at Middleton Road. At this time it was essentially a works club. In 1934, they changed their name to Banbury Spencer and moved to the Spencer Stadium.
Banbury and District Golf Club (now defunct) was founded in 1904. The club disappeared in the mid-1920s.[87] Agreyhound racing track was opened during the summer of 1951, one mile (1.6 km) north of Banbury town centre on the east side of Southam Road. The racing was independent (not affiliated to the sports governing body theNational Greyhound Racing Club) known as a flapping track, which was the nickname given to independent tracks.[88] The racing lasted until the latter part of 1954.[89]
AmericanHaas F1 Team European forward base of operation is located in Banbury after the collapse ofMarussia F1.Manor Racing formerly based in Banbury until the team went into administration in 2016. A number of other motor racing teams have been based in and around Banbury, includingProdrive,Arden International,Mahindra Racing,Simtek andVirgin Racing.
Banbury istwinned with:
Twinning in Banbury began on 26 October 1978, at a public meeting held at the Post-Graduate Education Centre, and called on the initiative of the late Councillor Ron Smith, the then Town Mayor of Banbury. Initial visits between Banbury andErmont in 1979, and for a long time after there was a period of informal relationship before a formal agreement was signed in 1982. Contact was first made withHennef about a possible agreement in October 1980 and within a year the formal agreement was signed.[92] As a consequence of this, two roads in Banbury (Hennef Way and Ermont Way) have been named after the two towns. Likewise a former Railway station square inHennef has been named Banburyplatz.
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