A ghost battle in the January sky, a witch at the Rollright Stones, a lost red horse on Edge Hill and a priest said to have been frightened to death by a joke. Eight stories, each told as far as the record goes and no further.
9 stories
Story · Strange Things · 5 minute read
Aunt Sally is a pub game played mainly in Oxfordshire: you throw wooden sticks at a white doll on a metal spike. It began as a Victorian fairground shy with an ugly history, and survives today in summer leagues around Banbury, Chipping Norton and Oxford.
Story · Strange Things · 5 minute read
Banbury's best ghost lives in a hotel by the Cross: a priest said to have died of fright in 1687 when a servant rang the alarm as a joke. There is a Cavalier at the Reine Deer and tunnels under everything. What the stories say, how they differ, and what the record shows.
Story · Strange Things · 5 minute read
Bicester's ghost stories: the White Lady who hid her household's valuables from the Roundheads, the Cavalier by the old Crock Well, monks by the priory site, a cunning man flown to Kirtlington by demons, and the Christmas ghost story M.R. James set in the Market Square.
Story · Strange Things · 4 minute read
Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross is a jogging rhyme for a child on an adult's knee, first printed in about 1744 with a boy buying cakes, not a lady. The town that pulled down its crosses in 1600 has lived on a rhyme about one ever since. What the words mean.
Story · Strange Things · 6 minute read
The odd corners of the country round Banbury: a ghost battle in the sky over Edgehill, a witch who turned a king to stone at Rollright, a lost red horse, a three-day saint, a priest said to have died of fright, and ruins built to look ruined. Each one told with what is on record.
Story · Strange Things · 6 minute read
In January 1643 a London pamphlet said the Battle of Edgehill was being fought again in the night sky, and that officers sent by the King had seen it. The pamphlet is real. We cannot trace the claim that a royal commission's report survives as a state record.
Story · Strange Things · 5 minute read
A great horse was cut into the red hillside above Tysoe, under Edge Hill, and scoured each year in the eighteenth century. It gave the Vale of the Red Horse its name, then was lost around 1800. Who said they saw it, the legend of the Earl of Warwick, and what the diggers found.
Story · Strange Things · 6 minute read
A king who would rule England if he could see Long Compton, a witch who turned him and his army to stone, and stones that go down to drink at midnight. The Rollright legend was written down from local people in the 1890s, and Long Compton's belief in witches was no joke.
Story · Strange Things · 5 minute read
Wroxton Abbey was never an abbey, its owners only ever leased it, and the prime minister who lost America lies blind and buried in the village church. Add a Gothic dovecote, a monument to three wives and a thatched Catholic church built by a man who changed his name.
Eight stories so far, and we would sooner keep the shelf short than pad it. Each starts from something on record and says where the record stops. Strange Banburyshire is the round-up, and the place to start.
The Edgehill ghosts is the one to read first. In January 1643 a London pamphlet said the Battle of Edgehill was being fought again in the night sky, and that officers sent by the King had seen it. The pamphlet is real. We cannot trace the claim, repeated everywhere, that a royal commission's report survives as a state record. If you want to stand there, the battlefield is seen from the ridge and a roadside memorial stone, and the Castle at Edgehill is the pub on the ridge above it.
Aunt Sally is strange in a different way. It looks like a harmless Oxfordshire pub game, sticks thrown at a white doll on a metal spike. It began as a Victorian fairground shy with an ugly history, which the piece does not hide, and it survives in summer leagues around Banbury, Chipping Norton and Oxford. The Bell at Adderbury is one pub where it turns up in the year's calendar.
The Rollright witch turned a king and his army to stone, in a legend written down from local people in the 1890s. The Red Horse of Tysoe was cut into the hillside under Edge Hill and scoured each year in the 18th century. It was lost around 1800, and one owner is said to have ploughed it up.
Banbury's ghosts include a priest who, the story goes, died of fright in 1687 when a servant rang the alarm as a joke. Wroxton Abbey was never an abbey, and the prime minister who lost America lies in the village church. And Ride a cock horse was first printed in about 1744 with a boy buying cakes, not a fine lady.
Other oddities are scattered through this site, and each page keeps legend apart from record.
Giant's Cave, off the Broughton Road, is a patch of old pasture full of hills and hollows, said by legend to hide a tunnel to Broughton Castle.
The Rollright Stones come with a tale of a king and a witch. They are three prehistoric monuments, built over nearly 2,000 years.
Broughton Castle has a room called the Council Chamber where, tradition says, Lord Saye met the King's opponents in a room with no ears. Visitors' guides repeat it, but the castle's own history page does not mention it.
The Reine Deer and Whately Hall both have tunnel stories, and the hotel has a ghost too. They are good fun, and they are stories.
The Warriner Windmill is a small post mill built in 1865 as a memorial to all windmills, which is odd enough with no ghost at all.
Drayton Arch is a ruin that was built as a ruin, about 1750, and is said to be to Sanderson Miller's design.
The Fine Lady rides a bronze horse through the middle of Banbury, and nobody has ever shown who she was.
We leave out any tale we cannot source, which keeps this page short. No drowned bells, no headless riders. If you know of one with a date, a name and a document behind it, we would like to hear about it. We would sooner say "nobody knows" than make something up.
A sham ruin, a memorial windmill, a legend in a field and a prehistoric circle.
Sight · Historic building
A ruined Gothic arch between two thin turrets, built about 1750 as a sham ruin to Sanderson Miller's design for the Wroxton Abbey estate. Grade II*, in fields near Drayton, and reached by a public footpath from Wroxton.
Sight · Historic building · Bloxham
A small timber post mill on the high ground at Bloxham Grove, between Bloxham and Adderbury, built in 1865 by the engineer Henry Warriner as a memorial to all windmills. Grade II, with its machinery intact. On farmland, not open, and seen from a footpath nearby.
Sight · Common or park · Banbury
A patch of old rough pasture off the Broughton Road on the edge of Banbury, called Giant's Cave and said by legend to hide a tunnel to Broughton Castle. One account calls it a late medieval quarry. It is free, and a stop on Cherwell's Banbury Fringe walk.
Sight · Hill fort or barrow
Three prehistoric monuments on the Oxfordshire and Warwickshire border, built over more than 2,000 years: the Whispering Knights, the King's Men circle and the King Stone, with a legend of a king and a witch to go with them. Open daily; adults £2.
A new oddity from the area when we have the documents to back it up.
A London pamphlet of January 1643 said the battle was being fought again in the night sky. The pamphlet is real. Whether anyone saw anything is another matter, and our story sets out what can be traced.
We cannot trace the claim that a royal commission's report survives as a state record, though it is often repeated. The pamphlet is the evidence we can find.
A pub game played mainly in Oxfordshire, throwing wooden sticks at a white doll on a metal spike. It began as a Victorian fairground shy, and our story covers its ugly history and how to see a match.
There is a legend of one, from Giant's Cave off the Broughton Road, an old pasture of hills and hollows. We know of no evidence for a tunnel.
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