Coordinates: 51°54′N 1°09′W / 51.90°N 1.15°W
| Bicester | |
 Sheep Street, Bicester |
|
  Bicester
Bicester shown within Oxfordshire |
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| Population | 28,672 (2001) |
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| OS grid reference | |
| Parish | Bicester |
| District | Cherwell |
| Shire county | Oxfordshire |
| Region | South East |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | BICESTER |
| Postcode district | OX25 - 27 |
| Dialling code | 01869 |
| Police | Thames Valley |
| Fire | Oxfordshire |
| Ambulance | South Central |
| EU Parliament | South East England |
| UK Parliament | Banbury |
| Website | Bicester Town Council |
| List of places: UK • England • Oxfordshire | |
Bicester (pronounced /ˈbɪstər/ (
listen) BIS-tər) is a town and civil parish in the Cherwell district of north-eastern Oxfordshire in England.
This historic market centre is one of the fastest growing towns in Oxfordshire[citation needed] Development has been favoured by its proximity to junction 9 of the M40 motorway linking it to London, Birmingham and Banbury. It has good road links to Oxford, Kidlington, Brackley, Buckingham, Aylesbury and Witney, as well as rail service.
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Bicester has a history going back to Saxon times[citation needed] The name Bicester, which has been in use since the mid 17th century, derives from earlier forms including Berncestre, Burencestre, Burcester, Biciter and Bissiter (the John Speed map of 1610 shows four alternative spellings and Miss G. H. Dannatt found 45 variants in wills of the 17th and 18th centuries). Theories advanced for the meaning of the name include "of Beorna" (a personal name), "The Fort of the Warriors" or literally from Latin Bi-cester to mean "The 2 forts". The ruins of the Roman settlement of Alchester lie 2 miles (3 km) southwest of the town and remains of an Augustinian priory established in 1180 survive in the town centre.[citation needed]
The West Saxons established a settlement in the 6th century at a nodal point of a series of ancient routes[citation needed] A north-south Roman route, known as the Stratton (Audley) Road, from Dorchester to Towcester, passed through King’s End. Akeman Street, an east-west Roman road from Cirencester to St. Albans lies 2 miles (3.2 km) south, adjacent to the Roman fortress and town at Alchester.
The first documentary reference is the Domesday Book survey of 1086 when it is recorded as Berencestra, its two manors of Bicester and Wretchwick being held by Robert d'Oily who built Oxford Castle. The town became established as twin settlements on opposite banks of the River Bure, a tributary of the Ray, Cherwell and ultimately the Thames.
Early charters promoted Bicester's development as a trading centre, with a market and fair established by the mid 13th century. By this time two further manors are mentioned, Bury End and Nuns Place, later known as Market End and King's End respectively.
The lord of the manor of Market End was the Earl of Derby who in 1597 sold a 9,999 year lease to 31 principal tenants. This in effect gave the manorial rights to the leaseholders, ‘purchased for the benefit of those inhabitants or others who might hereafter obtain parts of the demesne’. The leaseholders elected a bailiff to receive the profits from the bailiwick, mainly from the administration of the market and distribute them to the shareholders. From the bailiff’s title the arrangement became known as the Bailiwick of Bicester Market End. By 1752 all of the original leases were in the hands of ten men, who leased the bailiwick control of the market to two local tradesmen.
A fire in 1724 had destroyed the buildings on the eastern side of Water Lane. A Nonconformist congregation was able to acquire a site that had formerly been the tail of a long plot occupied at the other end by the King’s Arms. Their chapel built in 1728 was ‘surrounded by a burying ground and ornamented with trees. At the southern and downstream end of Water Lane, there were problems of pollution from animal dung from livery stables on the edge of town associated with the London traffic.
King’s End had a substantially lower population and none of the commercial bustle found on the other side of the Bure. The manorial lords, the Cokers, lived in the manor house since 1584. The house had been rebuilt in the early 18th century remodelled in the 1780s The park was enlarged surrounded by a wall after 1753 when a range of buildings on the north side of King’s End Green were demolished by Coker. A westward enlargement of the park also extinguished the road which followed the line of the Roman route. This partly overlapped a pre 1753 close belonging to Coker. The effect of the enlargement of the park was to divert traffic at the Fox Inn through King’s End, across the causeway to the Market Square and Sheep Street before returning to the Roman road north of Crockwell.
The two townships of King's End and Market End evolved distinct spatial characteristics. Inns, shops and high status houses clustered around the triangular market place as commercial activity was increasingly concentrated in Market End. The bailiwick lessees promoted a much less regulated market than that found in boroughs elsewhere. Away from the market, Sheep Street was considered ‘very respectable’ but its northern end at Crockwell was inhabited by the poorest inhabitants in low quality, subdivided and overcrowded buildings.
By 1800, the causeway had dense development forming continuous frontages on both sides. The partially buried watercourses provided a convenient drainage opportunity, and many houses had privies discharging directly into the channels. Downstream, the Bure ran parallel with Water Lane, then the main road out of town towards London. Terraces of cottages were built backing onto the stream, and here too these too took advantage of the steam for sewage disposal, with privies cantilevered out from houses over the watercourse. Town houses took their water from wells dug into the substrate which became increasingly polluted by leaching of waste through the alluvial bed of the Bure.
Until the early 19th century the road from the market place to Kings End ran through a ford of the Bure stream and on to the narrow embanked road across the boggy valley. The causeway became the focus for development from the late 18th century as rubbish and debris was dumped on each side of the road to form building platforms, minor channels of the braded stream were encased and culverted as construction proceeded.
The vernacular buildings of the town have features of both the Cotswold dip slope to the northwest and the Thames Valley to the southeast. The earliest surviving buildings of the town are the medieval church of St. Edburg; the vicarage of 1500 and two post dissolution houses in the former Priory Precinct constructed from reused mediaeval material. These buildings are mainly grey oolitic limestone, from the Priory Quarry at Kirtlington, five miles (8 km) west on Akeman Street, some ginger lias (ironstone) comes from the area around Banbury and white and bluish grey cornbrash limestone was quarried in Crockwell and at Caversfield two miles (3 km) to the north.
Early secular buildings were box framed structures, using timber from the Bernwood Forest on the western slopes of the Chilterns five miles (8 km) east. Infilling of frames was of stud and lath with lime render and limewash. Others were of brick or local rubble stonework. The river valleys to the south and east of the town were the source of clay for widespread local production of brick and tile. In the 18th and 19th centuries the Page-Turners had a brick fields in Wretchwick and Blackthorn and which operated alongside smaller produces such as the farmer George Coppock who produced bricks as a sideline.
Local roofing materials included longstraw thatch, which persisted on older and lower status areas on houses and terraced cottages. Thatch had to be laid at pitches in excess of 50 degrees. This generated narrow and steep gables which also suited heavy limestone roofs made with Stonesfield slate or other roofing slabs from the Cotswolds. The other widespread roofing material was local red clay plain tiles. 19th century bulk transport innovations associated with canal and railway infrastructure allowed imports of blue slate from North Wales. These could be laid at much more shallow pitches on fashionable high status houses.
Apart from imported slate, a striking characteristic of all of the new buildings of the early 19th century is the continued use of local vernacular materials, albeit in buildings of non-vernacular design. The new buildings were constructed alongside older wholly vernacular survivals and, sometimes superficially updated with fashionable applied facades, fenestration or upper floors and roofs.
Bicester is twinned with:
Canton des Essarts in the Vendée, in the Pays de la Loire in western France,
Czernichów in southern Poland,
Neunkirchen-Seelscheid in North Rhine-Westphalia in western Germany.The town has a long-standing connection with the military. Ward Lock & Co's 'Guide to Oxford and District' suggests that Alchester was 'a kind of Roman Aldershot'. During the Civil War (1642-49) Bicester was used as the headquarters of parliamentary forces. Following the outbreak of the French Wars from 1793, John Coker, the manorial lord of Bicester King’s End, formed an ‘Association for the Protection of Property against Levellers and Jacobins’ as an anti-Painite loyalist band providing local militia and volunteer drafts for the army. When Oxford University formed a regiment in 1798, John Coker was elected Colonel.
Coker’s Bicester militia had sixty privates, and six commissioned and non-commissioned officers led by Captain Henry Walford. The militia briefly stood down in 1801 after the Treaty of Amiens. But when hostilities resumed after 1804 invasion anxiety was so great as to warrant the reformation of the local militia as the Bicester Independent Company of Infantry. It had double the earlier numbers to provide defence in the event of an invasion or Jacobin insurrection. The Bicester Company was commanded by a captain, with 2 lieutenants, an ensign, 6 sergeants, 6 corporals and 120 privates. Their training and drill were such that they were deemed ‘fit to join troops in the line’. The only action recorded for them is in 1806 at the 21st birthday celebrations of Sir Gregory O Page-Turner when they performed a feu de joie ‘and were afterwards regaled at one of the principal inns of the town’.
During the first world war an airfield was established north of the town for the Royal Flying Corps. This became a Royal Air Force station, but is now Bicester Airfield, the home of Windrushers Gliding Club, which was absorbed into the military gliding club previous based there, to re-emerge in 2004 when the military club left the airfield.
The British Army's largest ordnance depot - the Central Ordnance Depot of the Royal Logistic Corps (formerly the Royal Army Ordnance Corps) and the Royal Army Service Corps - is located just outside the town. The depot has its own internal railway system, the Bicester Military Railway.
Bicester benefited from the Railway Mania of the 1840s. The Buckinghamshire Railway completed the railway between Bletchley and Oxford in 1851, opening "a neat station at the bottom of the London road"[citation needed] in 1850 to serve Bicester. The town's first fatal railway accident occurred at this station in September 1851.[citation needed] In 1910 the Great Western Railway built the Bicester cut-off line through Bicester to complete a new fast route between London and Birmingham, and opened a large station on Buckingham Road to serve Bicester. The GWR station is Bicester North, and to avoid confusion the Buckinghamshire Railway station is now called Bicester Town.
Bicester boasts a number of very active Residents' Associations including:
Bicester has two secondary schools: Bicester Community College (BCC) and The Cooper School. There are a number of primary schools including Langford Village Primary,Glory Farm Primary, Southwold, St Edburg's, Five Acres, Longfields and Bure Park Primary. If NW Bicester eco town is built there will be more schools for the eco houses.
The historic shopping streets, particularly Sheep Street and Market Square, have a wide range of local and national shops together with cafés, pubs and restaurants. Sheep Street is now pedestrianised with car parks nearby. Weekly markets take place on Fridays in the town centre along with farmers' markets and an occasional French market. A £70 million re-development of the town centre, originally planned to start in 2008, had been delayed by the onset of the credit crunch, but major retailer Sainsbury's Sainsbury (J) plc has now (January 2009) committed to the scheme by agreeing to develop the project itself. See Cherwell District Council website
South of Bicester beyond Pingle Field is Bicester Village Shopping Centre. Further towards Oxford is Bicester Avenue, one of the largest garden centres in the UK.
Most churches in Bicester belong to the ecumenical organisation Churches Together in Bicester:
Churches independent of Churches Together are:
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Bicester is a market town located in the north-east of the English county of Oxfordshire, some miles north of the university town of Oxford. It has become a popular destination on account of its being the location of Bicester Village, a large factory / designer outlet shopping village (see below, Buy).
Bicester has a traceable history of over a thousand years and was recorded in the Domesday Book. Like Banbury further North, it is experiencing growth and prosperity from its proximity to the M40 motorway linking London with Birmingham via Oxford.
The English writer Flora Thompson based her popular Lark Rise to Candleford trilogy on the area north-east of Bicester, encompassing the nearby villages of Juniper Hill, Cottisford, Fringford and Hethe.
Steve and Kathy Johnston are also rumoured to live the town.
Bicester is only a one hour car or train journey from the cities of London and Birmingham. Exit Junction 9 of the M40 Motorway.
For fastest access, take the M40 Motorway to Junction 9. Follow the A41 for 2 miles towards Bicester. If you've come for the shopping village, follow the signs to 'Village Retail Park' and 'Bicester Village Outlet Centre' Dont miss the excellent Bicester Avenue home and leisure shopping outlet.
Bicester can be reached from Oxford by following the A34 northwards out of the city (12 miles).
Chiltern Railways runs daily service to Bicester North Station from London Marylebone (every 30 minutes) and Birmingham Moor Street Station (every hour). There is a regular taxi bus service to and from Bicester North Station which costs £1 each way. Please call +44 (0) 1869 323 535 for more information. For information on train times and fares, call Chiltern Railways on +44 (0) 8456 005 165.
First Great Western run a direct train service from Oxford to Bicester Town station, known as the "Bicester Link" [1]. From 17th May 2009 trains run daily. Bicester Town station is the closest station to Bicester Village, being only a few minutes walk away. .
Stagecoach runs a regular and reliable bus service from Oxford to Bicester up to every 20 minutes with service number 27. The trip takes about 35 minutes from Oxford city centre and stops near Bicester Village (though not as near as one might expect) and in Bure Place bus station. Stagecoachs's X5 cross-county coach service from Oxford to Cambridge also stops in Bicester. It's slightly faster, normally taking 25 minutes but can only be picked up at Gloucester Green in Oxford and costs an extra pound.
There are no coach services from London or any other cities aside from those the X5 stops at (Oxford, Milton Keynes, Bedford, Cambridge).
The new Bicester Avenue shopping center
Bicester Avenue opening hours - (mon, tue, wed, fri, sat - 9AM - 6PM), (thurs 9AM - 8PM), (sunday 10:30 - 4:30) a fantastic 102,000 sq ft home, garden and leisure shopping centre built around one of the biggest garden centres in the UK. Wyevale, Antler, Cotswold outdoor, laura ashley, moshulu, julian graves, pets corner, cotton trader, craft central, world of water, lakeland, marshalls, hobbycraft, greeen & pleasant and newitts butchers.
Bicester Avenue Bicester Avenue is a 102,000 sq ft home and garden centre. It has a fantastic restaurant that provides everything from light lunches and freshly baked Italian pizza to full carverys every day. There is also a smaller coffee shop that is great for a coffee and cake.
If it's posh restaurants or gastropubs you want then Bicester isn't the place for you. If you like pub food, greasy fry ups and kebabs your in luck. Next to Bicester Village is The Acorn, a Hungry Horse pub. There are a couple of greasy spoons, Jenny's Restaurant in Market Square and Tracy's cafe in Wesley lane. There is also the Penny Black, a Wetherspoons pub, with cheap meals and old men. There are couple of Indian and Chinese restaurants but if none of this tickles your fancy theb there's always the hotdog van in Sheep Street.
If your planning an upmarket meal, Pizza Express in Market Sqaure is as close as it gets.
Those looking for a night out, the top venues are Yates in Sheep Street and G's wine lodge(which has a stripper in the week). There are a varity of pubs both on the estates and in the town centre. If your lucky you might catch a meat raffle in one of them.
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BICESTER, a market town in the Woodstock parliamentary division of Oxfordshire, England, 12 m. N.N.E. of Oxford by a branch of the London & North-Western railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 3023. It lies near the northern edge of the flat open plain of Ot Moor, in a pastoral country. The church of St Eadburg, the virgin of Aylesbury, is cruciform, with a western tower, and contains examples of Norman and each succeeding style. There is, moreover, in the nave a single rude angular arch considered to be Saxon. Incorporated with a farm-house, scanty Perpendicular remains are seen of an Augustinian priory founded at the close of the 12th century. Bicester has considerable agricultural trade and a brewing industry. It is a favourite hunting centre.
The termination tester, commonly indicating Roman origin, does not .do so here, and is perhaps copied from Alchester and Chesterton, 2 m. west of Bicester, where there is a small Roman site, probably a wayside village, at the meeting of roads from the south (Dorchester), west, north-east and east.
Bicester (Berncestre, Burencestre, Bissiter), according to the Domesday survey, was held by Robert d'Oily. In 1182 Gilbert Basset founded here an Augustinian priory, which from that date until its dissolution in 1538 became the centre of the industrial life and development of the town. In 1253 William Longspey obtained a grant of a fair at the feast of St Edburg, and a Friday market is mentioned in the 14th century. Richard II. granted a Monday market and a fair at the feast of St James the Apostle, and in 1440 an additional market was granted to be held in that part of the town called Bury-End, from this date known as Market-End. Bicester never possessed any manufactures of importance, but the fairs and markets were much frequented, and in the 16th century the cattle market was especially famous.
See J. C. Blomfield, History of the Deanery of Bicester (London, 1882-1894); John Dunkin, History of Bicester (London, 1816).
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