Cropredy
| Cropredy | |
| Oxfordshire | |
|---|---|
 St Mary the Virgin, Cropredy | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SP4646 |
| Location: | 52°6’58"N, 1°19’12"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 712 (2001) |
| Post town: | Banbury |
| Postcode: | OX17 |
| Dialling code: | 01295 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Cherwell |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Banbury |
| Website: | Cropredy village |
Cropredy is a village on the River Cherwell in Oxfordshire, four miles north of Banbury.
The village has two public houses: the 17th century Brasenose Arms and The Red Lion. The village has a doctor's practice and several shops.
Cropredy has Anglo-Saxon origins and is recorded in the Domesday Book. The village's name comes from the Old English words cropp (a hill) and ridig (a stream).
History
From 1519 onwards Brasenose College, Oxford owned extensive land in Cropredy. Manor Farm was built in 1693 and Prescote Manor was built in 1721.[1]
Cropredy Bridge on the River Cherwell was the site of a major battle in 1644 during the Civil War. King Charles engaged the Parliamentarian army led by Sir William Waller. The battle was a stalemate; the Parliamentarian side suffered heavy casualties but ultimately prevented the King's forces from crossing the bridge. A plaque on the bridge bears the inscription: “Site of the Battle of Cropredy Bridge 1644. From Civil War deliver us.” Before the battle, some of the church valuables were hidden in the River Cherwell; these included the brass eagle lectern, which was not recovered for fifty years, during which time it was damaged.[2]
Churches
The Church of England parish church of St Mary the Virgin is built of the local ironstone, which is a ferrous Jurassic limestone. Parts of the south aisle date from the 13th century. However, most of the present building is Decorated Gothic and was built in the 14th century, including the chancel arch, nave arcades, east window and most of the windows in the south aisle. In the 15th century Perpendicular Gothic alterations were made including a clerestory added above the nave, the north aisle rebuilt with new windows, and both aisles extended eastwards to form side chapels.[3]
The church had a clock by 1512, when the vicar, Roger Lupton, left £6 13s 4d in his will in trust for the churchwardens to pay someone to keep the clock running and chiming every quarter hour and the village curfew.[4] Lupton's will prescribed that the wardens be fined 6s 8d per month of £10 per year were they to fail.[4] A new clock may have been installed around 1700, and Lupton's clock may then have been transferred to Claydon.[4] The later clock was itself replaced in 1831 with a new one made by John Moore and Sons of Clerkenwell, London.[4]
The bell tower has a ring of bells. There were six, but in 2007 two new treble bells increased this to eight.[5] One of the new bells is named St Mary; the other Fairport Convention Festival Bell.[6][7]
A Methodist chapel had been built by 1822. The congregation outgrew it so a larger chapel was built on a new site in 1881.[8]
History
By the 13th century Cropredy was associated with the legend of Saint Fremund, a Mercian martyred of the 9th century.[8] Fremund's relics are supposed to have been moved from Offchurch in Warwickshire to Prescote, where they were lost for a time and then rediscovered and moved to Cropredy.[8] They were then moved to the Augustinian Priory at Dunstable, probably in 1207,[8] but an association with Fremund remained at Cropredy. There are records of gifts to a chapel and shrine to the saint here in 1488 and 1539, and a chantry priest serving in St. Fremund's chapel in 1489.[8] During the Reformation under King Edward VI the Crown sold the chapel and its contents in 1549 and it was probably demolished.[8] No trace remains, its site is unknown[8] and it is not clear whether the shrine chapel was at St Mary's church or elsewhere in the parish.
Building of the Oxford Canal began at Hawkesbury Junction on the Coventry Canal in 1769 and reached Cropredy in October 1777. The canal passes between the River Cherwell and the village. There is a canal lock here, and at the south end of the village a wharf was built. This originally handled coal from the Coventry coalfield, and now serves the canal's popular leisure traffic. The wharf was briefly the canal's terminus, until the section from Cropredy to Banbury opened in March 1778.[9] The canal finally reached Oxford and the River Thames at the end of 1789.[10]
Annual music festival
On farmland east of the village the electric folk band Fairport Convention stages an annual three-day music festival titled Fairport's Cropredy Convention. The festival has expanded from a one-day event first held in 1980 (although the band had played fundraisers in the village since 1976).[11][12]
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Cropredy) |
References
- ↑ Sherwood & Pevsner 1974, p. 560.
- ↑ Walker 1975, p. 19.
- ↑ Sherwood & Pevsner 1974, pp. 559–560.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Beeson & Simcock 1989, p. 36.
- ↑ Oxford Diocesan Guild of Church Bell ringers, Banbury Branch
- ↑ "Cropredy Church Bells". Cropredy Village. http://www.cropredyvillage.info/ChurchBells.htm. Retrieved 5 July 2009.
- ↑ "Cropredy Convention Archive". Fairport Convention's official website. 6 February 2007. http://www.fairportconvention.com/cropredy_archive.php?p=2. Retrieved 5 July 2009. "Inscriptions had been set in the moulding: the new treble is named St Mary and inscribed Cropredy Villagers gave me. The second bell is inscribed Fairport Convention Festival Bell to acknowledge Fairport Convention and the festival's association with the village."
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 8.5 8.6 Crossley 1972, pp. 157–175.
- ↑ Compton 1976, p. 25.
- ↑ Compton 1976, p. 39.
- ↑ Fairport's Cropredy Convention website
- ↑ Redwood & Woodward 1995, p. 76.
- Beeson, C.F.C. (1989) [1962]. Simcock, A.V.. ed. Clockmaking in Oxfordshire 1400–1850 (3rd ed.). Oxford: Museum of the History of Science. p. 20. ISBN 0-903364-06-9.
- Compton, Hugh J. (1976). The Oxford Canal. Newton Abbot: David & Charles. ISBN 0-7153-7238-6.
- A History of the County of Oxford, Volume 10: Banbury Hundred pages=157–175 (Victoria County History)
- Nikolaus Pevsner: Pevsner Architectural Guides
- Walker, George Graham (1975). Churches of the Banbury Area. Kineton: Roundwood Press. ISBN 0-900093-52-8.
