Prescote | |
---|---|
Bridleway, Prescote | |
Location within
Oxfordshire | |
Population | 16 ( 2001 census) [1] |
OS grid reference | SP4746 |
Civil parish |
|
District | |
Shire county | |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | Banbury |
Postcode district | OX17 |
Dialling code | 01295 |
Police | Thames Valley |
Fire | Oxfordshire |
Ambulance | South Central |
UK Parliament | |
Prescote is a hamlet and civil parish about 4 miles (6.4 km) north of Banbury in Oxfordshire. Its boundaries are the River Cherwell in the southeast, a tributary of the Cherwell called Highfurlong Brook in the west, and Oxfordshire's boundary with Northamptonshire in the northeast.
Prescote's toponym probably means "priest's cottage", referring to a cottage either owned by a priest or more likely inhabited by one. [2] Legend associates Prescote with Saint Fremund, a Mercian prince held to have been martyred in the 9th century AD. [2]
The manor of Prescote is not listed in the Domesday Book of 1086, but had appeared by 1208-09, when the Bishop of Lincoln was the feudal overlord. [2] Prescote comprised two manors that were held separately until 1417-1419, when John Danvers (died 1449) of Calthorpe, Oxfordshire, acquired both of them. [2] In 1796, his descendant Sir Michael Danvers, 5th Baronet (1738–1776) died without a male heir and left Prescote to his son-in-law Augustus Richard Butler. [2] In 1798, Butler sold the estate to the Pares family, who in 1867 sold it to Samuel Jones-Loyd, 1st Baron Overstone. [2] In 1883, Baron Overstone died without a male heir and left his estates to his daughter, Harriet, Lady Wantage. [2] On her death in 1920, Prescote was sold to A.P. McDougall, [2] whose Midland Marts company opened a cattle stockyard in 1921 beside Banbury Merton Street railway station. By 1964, Prescote belonged to Anne Crossman, the wife of Richard Crossman M.P., a descendant of the Danvers family. [2]
Prescote manor house has traces of a mediaeval moat, but a date-stone over the door of the present house indicates that it was built in 1691 by Sir Pope Danvers, 2nd Baronet (1644–1712). [3] The house was extended early in the 19th century. [2] The house at Prescote Manor Farm, about 0.5 miles (800 m) northeast of the Manor House, is dated 1693. [3]
Prescote had a mill on the River Cherwell, called Boltysmylle in 1482 and Boltes Mill in 1613. [2] By 1654, there was a "Prescote Mill", which may be the same as the earlier Boltes Mill. [2] By 1703, the mill was in disrepair but its remains were still recorded as extant in 1797-98 and 1823. [2] Today only its mill stream survives. [2] The mill's decline may be linked with the manor's transition from arable to sheep farming. In 1547, a Danvers leased land at Prescote to a shepherd, and in 1797 it was reported that most of the 385 acres (156 ha) of the farm attached to Prescote Manor was "old inclosed" pasture. [2]