Prescote

Human settlement in England

Prescote

District

Cherwell

Oxfordshire

Region

South East

CountryEnglandSovereign stateUnited KingdomPost townBanburyPostcode districtOX17Dialling code01295PoliceThames ValleyFire Oxfordshire Ambulance South Central UK Parliament

Banbury

List of places: UK; England; Oxfordshire

52°08′02″N 1°18′04″W / 52.134°N 1.301°W / 52.134; -1.301

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.

History

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]

References

^ "Area selected: Cherwell (Non-Metropolitan District)". Neighbourhood Statistics: Full Dataset View. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 30 March 2010.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ ^j ^k ^l ^m ⁿ ^o Colvin et al. 1972, pp. 206–210.
^ ^a ^b Sherwood & Pevsner 1974, p. 560.

Sources and further reading

Colvin, Christina; Cooper, Janet; Cooper, N.H.; Harvey, P.D.A.; Hollings, Marjory; Hook, Judith; Jessup, Mary; Lobel, Mary D.; Mason, J.F.A.; Trinder, B.S.; Turner, Hilary (1972). Crossley, Alan (ed.). A History of the County of Oxford, Volume 10: Banbury Hundred. Victoria County History. pp. 206–210. ISBN 978-0-19-722728-2.
Sherwood, Jennifer; Pevsner, Nikolaus (1974). Oxfordshire. The Buildings of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. p. 560. ISBN 0-14-071045-0.
Wass, Stephen; Dealtry, Rebecca (2011). "Possible Early Christian Enclosure and Deserted Medieval Settlement at Prescote, Near Cropredy". Oxoniensia. LXXVI. Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society: 266–272. ISSN 0308-5562.