A History of the County of Oxford: XIV: Witney and its Townships (Bampton Hundred Part Two) (Victoria County History)

This volume comprises a history of the large west Oxfordshire town of Witney and its rural townships of Crawley, Curbridge, and Hailey, an area of over 7,000 acres derived from a large, late Anglo-Saxon estate.Whitney, probably the site of the Anglo-Saxon estate centre, was redesigned as a planned `new town' in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century; from the seventeenth century it was widely known for its blanket industry, and became a centre of religious non-conformity. After the Second World War it was developed as one of the chief economic and residential centres in Oxfordshire, its population rising to over 20,000 by the end of the century. The town's origins, buildings, and physical development are fully discussed, together with its economic, social and religious history. This volume also covers the surrounding rural area straddling the Windrush valley, encompassing both scattered woodland settlements and nucleated villages with open fields; there was much early assarting and inclosure, much of the latter in connection with the wool trade and Witney's cloth industry. Important sites discussed include the medieval Witney park, Caswell House, near the site of a deserted medieval settlement, and the bishop of Winchester's recently excavated `palace' at Whitney.