Introduction
Kidlington parish, as it existed until 1929,
covered 4,768 a. between Oxford and Woodstock and contained the townships of Kidlington, Thrupp, Gosford, and Water Eaton; the
extra-parochial area of Cutteslowe was geographically within the parish but completely
separate from it administratively. (fn. 30) Each of the
townships became a separate civil parish in the
19th century. The area is dominated by Kidlington village which sprawls for nearly 2 miles
along both sides of the main Oxford to Banbury
road, ribbon development having been allowed
in the mid 20th century as Kidlington became
the largest of Oxford's dormitory villages. (fn. 31) The
built-up area extends into the former Gosford
township, but Thrupp was relatively unaffected
by modern housing. At Water Eaton a slow
process of desertion left only a few scattered
houses.
The eastern boundary of the ancient parish
followed the river Cherwell; the northern, recorded in the 11th century, (fn. 32) followed a stream,
field boundaries, and the road to Hensington
then known as the Wood way. The western
boundary followed field boundaries, Rowel
brook, Kingsbridge brook and, later, the Oxford
canal, and the Oxford-Woodstock road; the
southern boundary followed field boundaries,
the Oxford-Banbury road, and streams. A detached part of Water Eaton, bounded partly by
the Oxford-Banbury road, lay south and west
of Cutteslowe. Until 1256 or later part of Cogges
wood between Cogges and North Leigh belonged to Kidlington. (fn. 33) The ancient parish
achieved its final form in the early 13th century
when Water Eaton, itself composed of two or
three originally separate units, was added to
Kidlington, Thrupp, and Gosford. There was
some doubt in 1225 whether Water Eaton was
part of Kidlington parish, and although it was
said to be so in 1228 and fairly regularly thereafter, as late as 1821 its inhabitants argued that
they did not belong to Kidlington parish. (fn. 34)
Kidlington and Thrupp shared a field system,
and until inclosure in 1818 there seems to have
been no clearly defined boundary between them.
Thereafter Kidlington township contained
2,194 a., including two detached areas in
Thrupp, while Thrupp contained 813 a., including five detached areas in Kidlington. (fn. 35)
Changes under the Divided Parishes Act of 1882
reduced Kidlington to 2,191 a., including a detached area of 15 a., and increased Thrupp to
816 a., including three detached areas of c. 63 a.
in all. (fn. 36) The Oxfordshire Review Order of 1932
removed the detached areas and made other
transfers between the various townships, with
the result that Kidlington civil parish was increased to 2,305 a. and Thrupp was reduced to
666 a. (fn. 37) In 1948 Kidlington lost 144 a. to Begbroke parish, bringing its acreage to 2,161 a.
(875 ha.). (fn. 38) In 1955 Thrupp was united with
Shipton-on-Cherwell to form a new civil parish,
Shipton-on-Cherwell and Thrupp, of 1,724 a.
(698 ha.). (fn. 39)
Figure 12:
Kidlington and Thrupp c.1800
Gosford seems originally to have been part of
Kidlington township, but was separated when it
was granted to the Hospitallers in 1142. (fn. 40) By the
16th century it was associated with Water Eaton
for some administrative purposes. (fn. 41) In the 19th
century the township comprised 260 a. and its
boundaries followed the Banbury road on the
west, the Bicester road on most of the north,
Water Eaton Lane on most of the east, and field
boundaries on the south; on the north-east the
boundary skirted the inclosures of Gosford village. The township included a detached area of
18 a. between two streams of the Cherwell north
of Gosford bridge. In 1932 the detached part of
Gosford was transferred to Hampton Gay and
Hampton Poyle, 1 a. was transferred to Kidlington, and the rest (241 a.) was merged in the new
civil parish of Gosford and Water Eaton. (fn. 42)
The township of Water Eaton was formed in
the Middle Ages by the union in the hands of
Oseney abbey of an estate in Water Eaton, a 3 hide estate in Cutteslowe, and an estate at Fries,
later Frieze farm. Bounds of the Water Eaton
estate in 904 seem to describe an area east of the
Banbury road. The boundary ran from the
Cherwell at Wilsey northwards and then westwards along the boundary of the extra-parochial
area of Cutteslowe to the spring or stream at
Wulfwine's grove, probably near the modern St.
Frideswide's Farm where it seems to have
turned north and run across cultivated fields to
the point later marked by the south-east corner
of Gosford; thereafter it followed the later
boundary back to the Cherwell. (fn. 43) In 864 the new
owner of the estate was directed to pay 30s. to
Eynsham church, suggesting an earlier tenurial
or ecclesiastical dependance on Eynsham. (fn. 44)
The exact boundaries of Oseney abbey's Cutteslowe estate are not known, but the estate
included the detached part of the 19th-century
township of Water Eaton and the area west of
the Banbury road later known as Jordan Hill. (fn. 45)
Minor adjustments were probably made to the
Water Eaton boundary c. 1388 when, after a
protracted dispute, Oseney abbey gave St.
Frideswide's priory 17a. in Cutteslowe and
North Oxford in exchange for 6 a. in Water
Eaton and 8 a. on the south boundary of Cutteslowe. (fn. 46) In 1588 Twisdelowe, an area of c. 40 a.
on the Wolvercote boundary, was transferred
from Cutteslowe to Water Eaton. (fn. 47)
Fries or Frize lies between the Banbury road
and the Kingsbridge brook south of Kidlington,
but the name, whose meaning is uncertain,
seems originally to have been applied to an area
which extended into Yarnton and perhaps Wolvercote. Fries was held by Oseney abbey from
the earlier 12th century and by c. 1300 was part
of the abbey's bailiwick of Water Eaton. (fn. 48) An
estate there was said to be in Water Eaton in
1545 but in Kidlington and Wolvercote in 1574;
in 1648 it comprised 200 a. in Kidlington and
20 a. in Yarnton. (fn. 49) In 1674-5 there was a dispute over whether the estate was in Water Eaton
or Kidlington township, and although Fries was
from the 17th century onwards usually treated
as part of Water Eaton, in 1738 the vicar of
Kidlington, presumably referring to Fries and
Cutteslowe, reported that there were 'about four
or five estates intermixed... which do not belong
to this or any other parish that we know of.' (fn. 50)
Water Eaton in the 19th century comprised
1,501 a. of which 83 a. lay detached to the
south. (fn. 51) In 1929, under the Oxford Extension
Act of 1928, the detached part and a small area
at Jordan Hill, a total of 101 a., were transferred
to the city of Oxford, and a further 40 a. was
transferred to the new civil parish of Cutteslowe. In 1932 the Oxfordshire Review Order
united the rest of Water Eaton (1,360 a.) with
most of Gosford (241 a.), the whole of the extraparochial area of Cutteslowe (682 a.), Pixey
mead (51 a., formerly common to Yarnton and
Begbroke), and 26 a. of Kidlington to form the
new civil parish of Gosford and Water Eaton
(2,360 a.). (fn. 52)
Much of the ancient parish of Kidlington lies
between 60 m. and 65 m. above sea level; only in
the north-west does the land rise to between
75 m. and 90 m. The southern part, south of
Kidlington village, lies mainly on two wide
bands of alluvium along the Cherwell and the
Oxford canal; between them is a spine of Oxford
clay rising to 74 m. at Frieze Farm and to 75 m.
on a deposit of brickearth at Jordan Hill. North
of Kidlington village the soil changes to cornbrash with large areas of gravel terrace. (fn. 53) Until
inclosure in 1818 much of the clay and cornbrash was permanent grass, the arable being
confined to the gravel and parts of the alluvium.
The Oxford-Banbury road, an ancient route
turnpiked in 1755 and disturnpiked in 1875,
runs from south to north through the middle of
the parish; the Oxford-Woodstock road, turnpiked in 1719 and disturnpiked in 1878, forms
part of the western boundary at Fries and cuts
through the north-west corner. (fn. 54) A toll house on
the Woodstock road at Campsfield survived as a
private house in 1983; another nearby may have
been demolished in 1878, as was a toll house on
the Banbury road at Langford Lane. (fn. 55) A bridge
or causeway on the Woodstock road at Fries,
over the Kingsbridge brook and the adjoining
marshy ground, was the responsibility of a
bridge hermit in the late 12th century and of
Oseney abbey in the 13th. An Oxford man left
money to the bridge in 1271, (fn. 56) and in 1629 the
bridge was a wooden one. (fn. 57) The brook itself was
apparently named from the nearby canal
bridge. (fn. 58)
A third main road, leading to Bicester and so
to Cambridge, branches from the Banbury road
to cross the Cherwell at Gosford bridge, which
had replaced an earlier ford by c. 1250; (fn. 59) the
bridge was rebuilt in the later 15th century, and
was of stone by 1675. (fn. 60) Its repair was the
responsibility of the inhabitants of Gosford and
Hampton Poyle until it was taken over by the
turnpike trustees in 1755. It became a county
bridge on the expiry of the turnpike trust in
1872; it was repaired in 1880 and reconstructed
in 1917 and 1938. (fn. 61) In the 17th century and
perhaps earlier the Bicester road left the Banbury road at the two mile tree, apparently at
Jordan Hill near the Cutteslowe boundary, and
ran north-east across Water Eaton marsh, partly
on the line of the modern Water Eaton Lane, to
Gosford village and so to the bridge. (fn. 62) The road
was turnpiked with the Banbury road in 1755,
but in 1780 was replaced by a new turnpike
which left the Banbury road c. 1½ mile farther
north and ran east to join the old route, then
known as Small Marsh Road, at Gosford. (fn. 63) By
1881 only 'faint traces' of the pitching of the
earlier route across Water Eaton marsh remained, (fn. 64) and by 1983 even the footpath which
had replaced the road had disappeared.
The road from Witney through Bladon to
Enslow bridge crossed the north of the parish. It
was turnpiked as far as Campsfield in 1751 and
from Campsfield to Enslow bridge in 1768, and
was disturnpiked in 1870. (fn. 65)
The main road pattern in the south was
significantly altered by the construction in 1959
of the Gosford link road, from the Kidlington
roundabout on the Banbury road to Gosford,
and in 1960 of the Oxford north-western bypass, from the Peartree to the Kidlington roundabout. (fn. 66)
Langford Lane, which runs between the Banbury and Woodstock roads just north of Kidlington village, was called Wood way in the 17th
century and the earlier 18th, (fn. 67) but it was not
connected with the 11th-century Wood way on
the northern boundary of the parish. (fn. 68) The
modern name was first recorded in 1733, but
there was a quarry called Langford pits near
Thrupp in the later 17th century. (fn. 69) Until inclosure another road branched north-west from the
Banbury road at Thrupp to cross the Enslow
bridge road near the northern boundary of the
parish. It was called Salt Street in 1589, (fn. 70) and
may have been a branch of the salt way from
Droitwich (Worcs.) to Prince's Risborough
(Bucks.); in 1301 villeins owed salt works to the
lord of Kidlington manor. (fn. 71) At inclosure in 1818
the road was replaced by the more northerly
Campsfield Road. Footpaths to Islip and Hampton Poyle cross the Cherwell by footbridges.
Sparsey bridge in Water Eaton, on the Islip
path, was considered ancient in 1807, (fn. 72) but there
is no evidence for its date.
The Oxford canal was constructed through
the parish in 1788, using for much of its course
the bed of the Rowel and Kingsbridge brooks. It
was opened in 1790. At Thrupp, where the canal
leaves the Cherwell, a canal basin was formed
and a wharf built. Another wharf at Langford
Lane, in existence by 1795, was rebuilt during
the Second World War and used for the transport of materials for the nearby airfield. (fn. 73)
The Great Western's railway line from Oxford to Banbury was built through the parish
and opened in 1850; a station, designed by I.K,
Brunel, was built near the corner of Langford
Lane and the Banbury road in 1852. At first
called Woodstock Road, it was renamed Kidlington in 1890 and closed in 1964. (fn. 74) The building was still standing in 1983. The OxfordBletchley railway, a branch of the London and
Birmingham Railway, was built through Water
Eaton in 1850 and 1851. A station on the
Banbury road at Water Eaton served as a temporary passenger terminus for Oxford in 1851 and
remained as a goods depot until 1964. (fn. 75) In 1890
the Woodstock Railway Co. opened its branch
line from Kidlington to Woodstock. The line,
which ran beside the G.W.R. line from Kidlington station to Shipton-on-Cherwell, was closed
in 1954 and the track lifted in 1958. (fn. 76)
Kidlington men attended the Woodstock and
Bicester markets in the 16th century; in the 19th
century and the early 20th, carriers' carts ran to
Oxford several times a week. (fn. 77) Since 1923 Kidlington has been served by Oxford city buses. (fn. 78)
There was a penny post station in Gosford in
1838 and a post office by 1847. By 1853 the post
office had moved to Kidlington. (fn. 79)
Wells and streams provided water for Kidlington and its hamlets until the 20th century.
Kindlington, Gosford, and Water Eaton were
connected to the Oxford water supply in 1934. (fn. 80)
Open drains, blamed for much disease in the
early 19th century, were covered in 1843. (fn. 81) In
1931 the Thames Conservancy declared Kidlington's drains a nuisance, since they were
polluting the Cherwell, but a new main drainage
system was not built until after the Second
World War. (fn. 82) Kidlington was included in the
Oxford and District Gas Co.'s area of supply in
1924. (fn. 83)
Two round barrows survived near the Cutteslowe boundary in 1983, and two others in a field
north of the Rowel brook were marked by ring
ditches; (fn. 84) there may have been another at Anslowe cross, a name recorded in 1630, (fn. 85) in Kidlington village. In the Roman period there was a
villa at Water Eaton whose tesselated pavement
survived in 904, and another at Campsfield,
known only from cropmarks. A farm or village
associated with the Campsfield villa was occupied from the 1st to the 4th or 5th century, (fn. 86) and
there was probably another farm north-west of
Kidlington church, where pottery and coins
were found in the 19th century and a stone-lined
well survived in 1983. (fn. 87)