Prescote
Coordinates: 52°08′02″N 1°18′04″W / 52.134°N 1.301°W
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 Domesday Book of 1086 does not mention Prescote. The manor did exist 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 of Calthorpe acquired both of them.[2] In 1796 Sir John Danvers, Baronet, 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. Crossman was 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 for Sir John Danvers in 1691.[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
Sources and further reading
- Crossley, Alan (ed.); 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). 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. Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society. LXXVI: 266–272. ISSN 0308-5562.
