Adderbury
| Adderbury | |
| Oxfordshire | |
|---|---|
 St Mary the Virgin Parish Church | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SP472355 |
| Location: | 52°-0’58"N, 1°18’47"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 2,819 (2011) |
| Post town: | Banbury |
| Postcode: | OX17 |
| Dialling code: | 01295 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Cherwell |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Banbury |
| Website: | Adderbury Parish Council |
Adderbury is a winding, linear village in the north of Oxfordshire about three miles south of Banbury. It has five sections: the new Milton Road housing development & West Adderbury towards the southwest; East Adderbury to the centre, both with a village green and a manor house; and the new housing Development on the Aynho Road; and the northeast, which is known as Twyford, named after a small outlying settlement by a forked section of the River Cherwell.
The village is noted for the many honey-coloured limestone cottages and houses in the older parts of the village. East Adderbury's manor house is 16th century and features diamond-patterned brick chimney-stacks. The Grange, also in East Adderbury, was built by John Bloxham of Banbury for Sir Thomas Cobb, first Baronet, of Banbury, in 1684.[1]
East and West Adderbury are divided by the Sor Brook, a tributary of the Cherwell which rises over in Warwickshire and joins the Cherwell between Adderbury and Aynho, Northamptonshire. The Oxford Canal cuts through to the east of the parish, as does the Cherwell itself.
The M40 motorway passes close to the north-east of Adderbury near Twyford wharf. Banbury Business Park and Banbury Golf Course are also in the eastern part of the parish. Railways briefly pass through the easternmost river meander, the combined Chiltern Main and Cherwell Valley Lines.
Name
The village’s name has had several changes of spelling. The earliest known record of it is in a document from the middle of the 10th century.[2] The Domesday Book of 1086 records it as Edburgberie, meaning "Eadburg's town".
Churches
- Church of England: St Mary's, a mediæval church in East Adderbury
- Methodist: Adderbury Methodist Church, in High Street, built in 1893.[1][3]
- Roman Catholic: Saint George's chapel in Round Close Road in West Adderbury, built in 1956.
The Church of England parish church, St Mary the Virgin is in East Adderbury. It is one of the largest parish churches in Oxfordshire and architecturally one of the most important.[1] The church retains evidence of its 13th century origins but was enlarged in the 14th century and again in the Perpendicular Gothic style in the early 15th century.
By 1611, St Mary's had a clock; in 1684 it was replaced with a new clock. It has since been replaced with a Victorian clock by John Smith and Sons of Derby, and little has been preserved of the 1684 clock except one shaft from the motion and the remains of one hand.
The church underwent a Victorian restoration by J.C. Buckler between 1831 and 1834 and again by Sir George Gilbert Scott between 1866 and 1870, and then with less sensitivity by Sir George's son John Oldrid Scott in 1886.
St Mary's is a Grade I listed building.[4]
A former Independent chapel, self-governing and owing no allegiance to outside denominations was built in 1820 in Cross Hill Road in West Adderbury. The main door was widened when the chapel was converted to industrial use.[1]
History
The earliest buildings in Adderbury are St Mary's Church and Adderbury Tithe Barn: the latter, standing near St Mary's, was built for New College, Oxford, and has been dated mainly to the 14th century.<name=pev/> but with it earliest parts dated to 1422. It is a Grade II listed building.[5]
Adderbury House in East Adderbury was built in the 17th century and was owned by Henry Wilmot, 1st Earl of Rochester, who fought on the Royalist side during the Civil War, commanding cavalry under Prince Rupert: both men kept troops at Adderbury House. The poet Anne Wharton, wife of the Whig politician Thomas Wharton, 1st Marquess of Wharton, died there in 1685.
The former Banbury and Cheltenham Direct Railway, part of the Great Western Railway, was completed in 1881. Adderbury railway station was at East Adderbury. The station was closed in 1951 and the railway closed to freight in 1964.
Clockmakers
Adderbury's Quaker community included a number of clockmakers. Richard Gilkes (1715–87) was a son of Thomas Gilkes of Sibford Gower.[6] Richard was apprenticed to his father and started his own business in Adderbury East in about 1736.[6] Gilkes was a prolific clockmaker until the 1770s[7] and maintained the turret clock of St Mary the Virgin parish church from 1747 until 1786.[8]
Joseph Williams (1762–1835) lived in Adderbury East and traded from 1788.[9] Williams made longcase clocks and succeeded Richard Gilkes in the maintenance of the parish church clock, which he did from 1788 until 1827.[10] His son William Williams (1793–1862) assisted him and took over the business on his father's death in 1835.[10] He made longcase clocks and maintained the parish church clock from 1828 until 1839.[10]
About the village
Adderbury House in East Adderbury was built in the 17th century.
There are four public houses in the village: The Bell Inn[11] in High Street; The Coach and Horses[12] by the Green; The Pickled Ploughman,[13] formerly the Plough Inn, on Aynho Road; and The Red Lion[14] by the Green.
Banbury business park is a modest cluster of office and distribution buildings on Aynho Road in the east of the parish.
Society
- 1st Adderbury Scouts
- Adderbury Rainbows
- Adderbury Theatre Workshop
- Adderbury Women's Institute
- Photographic Club
- Cinema Club
- Gardening Club
- Local History Association
- Mothers' Union
- Over Sixties' Club
Morris dancing
The village has a history of morris dancing, which has escaped the confines of Adderbury. The Adderbury Morris tradition was documented by Janet Blunt: in 1916 she began interviewing William "Binx" Walton, then 80 years old, who had been foreman of the Adderbury side for 20 years in the mid-19th century. In 1919 Blunt introduced Walton to Cecil Sharp, who watched Walton's performances and published detailed descriptions in his Morris Book.
Subsequent researches have determined that there were once as many as three Morris sides in the village, and the names of more than two dozen of the 19th century dancers have been documented. During Whitsun week they performed in Adderbury and neighbouring villages.
Sides regularly used to dance at Banbury Fair and the well-known Banbury eccentric, William 'Old Mettle' Castle, was fool for the Adderbury team in the 19th century. During this period the village had two or possibly three sides performing although this had died out by the 1880s.
A revival side was established at the village school in the Edwardian era and some of the boys developed into a men's Morris side, before the First World War. The war took them though and ended the revival traditon.
Blunts' research was so detailed though that the dances they could still be performed by a newly formed revival team led by Bryan Sheppard and Tim Radford. The side split in 1975 to form two Morris dancing sides in Adderbury, the Adderbury Village Morris Men (dressed in white and green with top hats) – whose members come from the village or surrounding parishes and only dance traditional dances from Adderbury – and the Adderbury Morris Men (dressed in white, blue and red), who take dancers from anywhere and who occasionally create new dances to add to the repertoire. There is also now a women's side, named Sharp and Blunt after Cecil Sharp and Janet Blunt. The Adderbury tradition has become popular with groups of dancers from as far afield as the United States, Australia and India. Once a year both teams come together, with other guest sides, for a "Day of Dance" throughout the village.
Sport and leisure
- Bowls: Adderbury Bowls Club[15]
- Cricket
- Cycling club
- Football: Adderbury Park Football Club
- Golf: Banbury Golf Club (18 holes)
- Tennis and squash: Banbury Westend Tennis and Squash Club[16]
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Adderbury) |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Nikolaus Pevsner: The Buildings of England: Oxfordshire, 1974 Penguin Books ISBN 978-0-300-09639-2page 413-416
- ↑ Ekwall, Eilert, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 4th edition, 1960. p. 2 ISBN 0198691033
- ↑ Adderbury Methodist Church
- ↑ National Heritage List 1200012: Church of St Mary (Grade I listing)
- ↑ National Heritage List 1365854: Tithe barn adjoining Tythe Barn House (Grade II listing)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Beeson & Simcock 1989, p. 101.
- ↑ Beeson & Simcock 1989, p. 102.
- ↑ Beeson & Simcock 1989, p. 103.
- ↑ Beeson & Simcock 1989, p. 150.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Beeson & Simcock 1989, p. 151.
- ↑ The Bell Inn
- ↑ The Coach and Horses, Adderbury
- ↑ Pickled Ploughman, Adderbury
- ↑ The Red Lion
- ↑ Adderbury Bowls Club
- ↑ Banbury Westend Tennis and Squash Club
- Adderbury in the Domesday Book
- Allen, Nicholas (1995). Adderbury: A Thousand Years of History. Chichester: Phillimore & Co for Banbury Historical Society. ISBN 0850339944.
- Beeson, C.F.C. (1989). Simcock, A.V. ed. Clockmaking in Oxfordshire 1400–1850 (3rd ed.). Oxford: Museum of the History of Science. pp. 26–27, 162. ISBN 0-903364-06-9.
- Ekwall, Eilert, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 4th edition, 1960. p. 2 ISBN 0198691033
- A History of the County of Oxford - Volume 9 pp 5-44: Bloxham Hundred (Victoria County History)
- Nikolaus Pevsner: The Buildings of England: Oxfordshire, 1974 Penguin Books ISBN 978-0-300-09639-2