Introduction
Begbroke is a small parish 4 ½ miles (c. 7 km.)
north–west of Oxford on the Oxford–Woodstock road. (fn. 1) Its area until 1932 was 577 a.,
including a detached portion of 118a. in the
north–east corner of Yarnton parish which was
then taken into Yarnton. (fn. 2) In 1948 part of Kidlington, c. 144 a. east of the Oxford–Woodstock
road and north of Rowel brook, was transferred
to Begbroke, (fn. 3) bringing the total area of the civil
parish to 603 a. (244 ha.). The ancient parish
was bounded on the north by Rowel brook and
on part of the south–west by Frogwelldown
Lane, an ancient route; elsewhere the boundary
had an artificial appearance, following straight
field boundaries.
The land slopes gently from c. 100 m. in the
west to c. 70 m. at the village, while to the east it
is almost flat. Most of the parish lies on Oxford
clay, but there is an area of sand and gravel east
of the Oxford–Woodstock road, and it was there
that the manor house and farm buildings of
Begbroke Hill were built in the early 17th
century; (fn. 4) the main settlement is on the clay,
relatively unusual in Oxfordshire. The geological division within the parish is reflected in field
names such as the Clays in the west, and the
Sands in the east. The western edge of the
parish is well wooded. Begbroke wood, comprising 40 a., of which 8 a. lie in Yarnton, was
mentioned from the late 17th century, (fn. 5) and was
valued both for its timber and for its 'far famed'
reputation as a game preserve. (fn. 6) Muntjac deer
have been introduced into the wood in the 20th
century.
The Oxford–Woodstock road was turnpiked
in 1718 and disturnpiked in 1878. (fn. 7) The road
from the turnpike into the village, known in the
early 19th century as Watery Lane, was said in
1820, shortly before it was widened and remade,
to be a 'hollow lane, dark, damp, and dirty', too
narrow to allow carriages to pass. (fn. 8) Dalton, or
Dolton, Lane running south from the west end
of the village to the Oxford–Woodstock road
may have formed part of an ancient route; it was
called Green Lane in 1844, (fn. 9) and further north
continues as a footpath to Bladon. A lane which
ran from Watery Lane east of the rectory was
suppressed in 1823. (fn. 10) Begbroke was served by
carriers operating to and from Oxford, and
occasional carrying services were offered by
landlords of the Sun inn. (fn. 11)
Traces of early settlement have been discovered in Begbroke and Yarnton near Begbroke
Hill, (fn. 12) but the Saxon village of Begbroke ('Becca's brook') (fn. 13) was built c. ¾ mile to the northwest. Its population was small in 1086, when 9
tenants were recorded, and in 1279, when there
were 13. (fn. 14) There had probably been a fall in
population by 1377, when only 33 persons over
the age of 14 were assessed for poll tax. (fn. 15) Later
assessments suggest little expansion before the
19th century: in 1428 there were said to be fewer
than 10 households in the parish, (fn. 16) 20 people
took the Protestation Oath in 1642, (fn. 17) 5 households were assessed for the hearth tax of 1662, (fn. 18)
and 41 adults were recorded in 1676. (fn. 19) Between
1738 and 1774 the number of households in the
parish varied from 11 to 15, (fn. 20) and there were 15
in 1801, when the population was 80. A rise to
118 in 1811, followed by a fall to 102 in 1821,
was attributed to the temporary presence of a
girls' boarding school. The population remained
at c. 100 thereafter until falling to 80 in 1871 and
to a low point of 68 in 1881. A slight recovery
followed, and in 1931 the population was 111. In
the 1930s workers in Oxford began to live in
Begbroke, and by 1951, with the inclusion of
101 people transferred from Kidlington in 1948,
Begbroke's population had risen to 360. Between 1971 and 1981 it rose from 567 to 755,
proportionally one of the largest increases in the
area. (fn. 21)
The old village lies west of the Oxford–Woodstock road and is approached by Spring
Hill Road, formerly Watery Lane, overhung by
mature horse–chestnut trees which serve to insulate the village from the heavy traffic of the
main road. A narrow road, St. Michael's Lane,
branches north to the church, which stands at
the north–east edge of the village, and Spring
Hill Road continues south–westwards to the
junction with Dalton Lane. There seem to have
been two main areas of housing, at each end of
the village street and perhaps representing two
manorial centres. East of the church and rectory
house stands St. Philip's Priory, whose predecessor may once have been the chief house of
Studley priory's Begbroke estate. Nearby, west
of the church and south–east of the village street,
were houses of the FitzHerbert manor. Orchard
House, bearing the dates 1692 and 1694 and the
initials of Thomas FitzHerbert (d. 1700), stands
south–west of the church, possibly on the site of
what was the FitzHerbert manor house until the
building of Begbroke Hill. It is a plain, twostoreyed, stone house, greatly altered and enlarged in the 19th and 20th centuries. A drawing
of the church in 1801 appears to show a dovecot
west of the churchyard wall, presumably belonging to the house. (fn. 22) At the west end of the
street, known as Village End, there were formerly some cottages, and the end is dominated
by Hall Farm, possibly the site of the manor
house of the Lyons, later the Spencer, manor.
South–east of the farmhouse was the parish
pound. (fn. 23) Begbroke lacks, and perhaps never
had, the large number of small 17th– and 18th–century yeoman houses common elsewhere in
the area. In 1838 more than half the houses in
the village were dismissed as 'poor cottages', (fn. 24)
and several, along the main road near the Royal
Sun inn and along the lane leading to the
church, were demolished in the 19th century. (fn. 25)
The Royal Sun was probably the 'disorderly
house' reported to the magistrates in 1711 and
1745 as kept by the Tarrant family. (fn. 26) Referred
to from 1774 as the Sun, (fn. 27) it acquired its prefix
c. 1915. (fn. 28) It is an 18th–century building of
coursed rubble, and retains a double rectangular
plan, but the interior has been repeatedly altered.
Figure 2:
Begbroke and Yarnton c.1845
The former schoolhouse, dated 1820 but of an
earlier build, was demolished in the 1960s and
replaced by a large stone house incorporating
the datestone of the earlier dwelling. (fn. 29) In 1844
an isolated cottage, part of the FitzHerbert
estate, stood next to the Bladon path at Village
End; parts of the building appear to survive in a
later house on the site, but they have been
almost completely submerged by later additions.
On the north side of Spring Hill Road east of
Hall Farm a pair of brick labourers' houses of
the later 19th century stand on sites occupied by
two cottages in 1844. (fn. 30) Until its closure in 1984
St. Juliana's convent school, opposite the southeast corner of St. Michael's Lane, occupied the
site of a house included in the partition of the
FitzHerbert estate in 1804. (fn. 31) That house or a
successor, known as the Elms in the later 19th
century, (fn. 32) was rebuilt in ironstone in 1888. (fn. 33) It
was bought in 1905 by Charles Robertson, who
enlarged it in 1906, renamed it Begbroke Place and gave it in 1908 to be a hostel for Roman
Catholic priests, a role it served until 1924. (fn. 34) It
has become, with the addition of school buildings in 1940 and 1968, (fn. 35) the largest group of
buildings in the village. It was bought in 1986
by Solid State Logic Ltd., a leading manufacturer of broadcasting and recording equipment,
which transferred its headquarters there from
nearby Stonesfield and began a large–scale expansion on the site. (fn. 36) Since the demolition of the
cottages south of the Royal Sun the only houses
along the west side of the road are a stone house
in the grounds of St. Philip's Priory, and, to the
north, Priory Cottage. The only remaining
19th–century house east of the main road is a
small stone house with brick dressings in Fernhill Road, formerly in Kidlington.
It was said in 1935 that no new houses had
been built in Begbroke since 1918, and that a
fifth of the families in the parish were living in
overcrowded conditions. (fn. 37) Although there are a
few modern houses in the old village the wide
and busy main road to some extent divides
Begbroke into two communities. Housebuilding
east of the road began in the 1930s, in response
to demands from newcomers to the area, many
of them workers at the Cowley motor factories.
The earliest houses and bungalows, along the
main road and in Begbroke Lane and Fernhill
Road, were of good quality and were on spacious
plots typical of the better garden suburbs of the
period. Development after 1945 was more intensive, and housing estates have spread steadily
eastwards on both sides of Begbroke Lane.
Begbroke was connected to the Oxford water
supply in 1934. (fn. 38) A village hall was built in 1947
in Begbroke Lane, (fn. 39) and was rebuilt c. 1975. (fn. 40)
The Agricultural Research Council's Weed
Research Organisation was established at Begbroke Hill in 1960, and acquired an international reputation. (fn. 41) Government economies
forced its closure in 1985, and its staff was
dispersed to other research establishments.