Local voices, Strange Things and the guides, written by people who live here.
58 stories
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 · History · 10 minute read
Bicester grew up by a ford over the Bure Brook, gained an Augustinian priory in the 1180s and a market in 1239 that still runs every Friday. It was a hunting town, then a garrison town, and since 2014 a garden town. The story from the record, and what of it you can still see.
Story · Guides · 12 minute read
Broughton Castle, Upton House, Sulgrave Manor, Canons Ashby, Farnborough Hall, Compton Verney, Chastleton, Stowe and Charlecote Park: which suits whom, which days combine them, what opens in winter, and which to skip.
Story · Guides · 9 minute read
The churches near Banbury worth a detour: the three spires of Bloxham, Adderbury and Kings Sutton, Burton Dassett on its hill, Hook Norton's carved font, Broughton's wall paintings, Cropredy's doom, the Washington pew at Sulgrave, and St Mary's in Banbury.
Story · Guides · 11 minute read
An independent guide to camping at Fairport's Cropredy Convention: stickers and prices, arrival, which field takes what, glamping, sites nearby, tickets, the village, the canal and getting there, from the organisers' own pages.
Story · Guides · 11 minute read
The best day trips from Banbury: Oxford by train in under half an hour, Warwick Castle, Stratford-upon-Avon, Blenheim Palace, Bicester Village, Silverstone and the Cotswolds, with how to get there, what it costs and which are not worth doing by car.
Story · History · 26 minute read
Elmsbrook is the first phase of North West Bicester, the only one of Labour's eco-towns built to the 2009 standards. This is the full story: the programme and why it failed elsewhere, the rules, who built it, what monitoring found, the later phases, and how to see it.
Story · History · 7 minute read
The Knightleys bought Fawsley, near Daventry, in 1416 and cleared its village for sheep. They built a Tudor hall, hid a puritan press in 1588 and held the estate for about 500 years. The village is gone, and the church stands alone in the park with their tombs.
Story · Guides · 8 minute read
Free things to do in and near Banbury: the Cross and the Fine Lady, the free museum, People's Park and Spiceball, the canal towpath, Deddington's castle banks, Swalcliffe Barn on summer Sundays, Radway's battle exhibition and the town's free events.
Story · History · 8 minute read
The Americans left RAF Upper Heyford in 1994 with no plan for what came next. Fifteen years of argument produced a protected Cold War landscape, a business park in the hangars and Heyford Park, a village of more than a thousand new homes, with 9,000 more now proposed.
Story · History · 5 minute read
Hornton stone is the rusty ironstone that colours the villages around Banbury. It is a band of Jurassic rock no more than about 10m thick, quarried at Hornton and on Edge Hill for centuries. Henry Moore carved it, and steelworks ate it until 1967.
Story · History · 7 minute read
Bicester Village opened in April 1995 on a wet field at the edge of town with 13 boutiques and a café. Thirty years on it has over 150, a record 6.7 million visitors in 2024 and its own station. How an American developer's gamble worked and what it meant for the town.
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