#banbury

[livesunique]

Edgcote Estate,

Edgcote, Banbury, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom

[fuckitandmovetobritain]

Wroxton, Oxfordshire, Cotswolds, England, UK

[f1driversascheese]

jim clark as banbury

@sourdough42

[ltwilliammowett]

Stained glass window in St Mary's Church, Banbury - Pictured here is HMS Terror stuck in the ice. The image was taken from the Arctic reports and notebook of Admiral Sir George Back during his Arctic expedition in 1836. It was commissioned by Henry Back, the admiral's brother and vicar of the church in c. 1860.

[cheese-tournament]

Round 1

pick a cheese

Dobrodar

Banbury

Voting ended onApr 5, 2024

Propaganda:

Dobrodar

At least it looks edible compared to its competitor

Ukrainians really know how to design cheese packaging 👌

Banbury

This cheese doesn't even exist anymore

Somehow it's a Shakespearean insult

Throw back to 15th century peasantry

[carharttme]

[hlougartisanjewels]

Super cute little maple studs

[travelingue]

The woman and the cross

Banbury must once have been a town of consequence.   It is known far and wide through a nursery rhyme about a fine lady who rode there, more or less to the tune of Lilliburlero.  But who was she, and what drew her to the place?  Why those bells on her toes?  Does Banbury still have a cross worth checking out?

It was 13:00 and I'd been driving for two hours when I said: "What is a cock horse?"  I expect my wife, a native English-speaker, to know those things.

"You've seen the signs for Banbury too!" she said. "Yes, but you haven't answered my question." "I have no idea what a cock horse is." "It's lunchtime.  Let's find out, shall we?" I said, veering off the M40.

I also wanted to know how a town stuck in no man's land halfway between Oxford and Northampton could survive in today's world. What was the point of Banbury? Besides the lady and the cross, the place raised existential questions.

Judging from the rates at the NCP car park off the high street (£1.95 an hour), locals seemed to have money to spare.  The dog-friendly café we entered - with its wooden tables and stripped floors - also suggested residual affluence.  But appearances, I knew, could be deceptive.

After lunch I said: "Let's explore the town. The cross must be there somewhere." "It's very cold," my wife observed. "It can't take long.  And Gamma needs a walk." "Let's make it a quick one," she said.

Banbury had evidently seen better days.  Boarded-up windows are always a sorry sight, but few things are sadder than finding grand buildings turned into bridal shops and pizza parlours.

The facade of the 1850s corn exchange was now the entrance to a shopping centre.  In an ironic nod to a glorious past, the building bore an inscription marking its repurposing with the undistinguished date 1977 in Latin numerals.

The poodle was more interested in the base of the corn exchange than in the top.  As we moved on, he gave each lamppost close consideration, slowing our progress.

"No sign of a cross here," my wife said. "Maybe it's behind the shopping mall."

At the back we found a waterway.

I looked it up on my phone. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, I explained, Banbury benefited from its location on the Oxford Canal, the main artery for trade between the Midlands and London.  Now it was used by the odd narrow boat.

"Interesting, but I'm freezing." My wife said.  "Let's go."

We made our way back via Market Place, a thoroughfare that had been better preserved than the high street.

Like towns and cities across Britain, Banbury had its architectural heyday in the Victorian era. I marvelled at the 1854 town hall.

Standing in front of another Gothic Revival erection, I had to search it on Google Lens.

"This," I said, "is the former Banbury Mechanics Institute, built in 1884.  The Victorians - those notorious oppressors of the toiling masses! - set up such institutions the length and breadth of Britain to provide FREE education for workers."

My wife had heard that speech before: "I know the Victorians were benevolent giants.  But it's getting colder by the minute.  Look: even poor Gamma is shivering."

The dog, I had noted, had lost all interest in lampposts. He cut a miserable figure indeed. But a few feet away, two more houses caught my eye.

After frantically tapping on my phone, I intoned: "These neo-baroque gems were built in 1866 by a local architect named William Wilkinson. Whay has no one heard of this genius?  He should be as famous as Gilbert Scott!"

I was about to rue the fact that one of the houses had been converted into a trattoria when my wife held up her hand.

"You're the one who complained about the parking rates. You can pay NCP another £1.95 and explore the town if you like, but Gamma and I are returning to the car."

I entered "Banbury Cross" into the Maps app (I should have thought of that in the first place, instead of just googling the term).  It immediately located the cross, just beyond the car park.  We'd been looking in the wrong place.

I escorted my wife and Gamma to the vehicle and said I'd be back soon.  I found the cross at the centre of a roundabout.

I was disappointed to read that it was an 1859 replica of the original, which was destroyed by the rabid Puritans who controlled Banbury during the seventeenth-century Civil War.  Not every medieval simulacrum put up by the Victorians is a triumph: this was one of their least successful efforts. 

Beyond the roundabout, the likeness of a woman was sitting side-saddle in equestrian rigidity.  The statue flaunted fussy motifs and carried the text of the nursery rhyme across its base.  Obviously plonked there to amuse road-weary children, it would have been at home in Disneyland.

The accompanying sign said: "The Fine Lady is depicted as the 'Queen of the May' and incorporates symbols of spring.  She wears a crown of thirteen spring flowers, alternating daffodils and wild roses, symbolising the thirteen ancient calendar months.  The frog represents metamorphosis, the cycle of nature and community."

The only conclusion to draw from this verbiage was that no one had a clue what the rhyme meant.  I got back to the car just before the two-hour mark.

"Do you think the £3.90 was money well spent?" I asked as I rejoined the M40. "We needed to stop for lunch," my wife said. "Yes, but I still don't know about the fine lady, or what the point of modern Banbury is." "At least you've been acquainted with Mr William Wilkinson."

That was true, but she hadn't answered my question. I glanced at her.  Clutching Gamma, she was watching the Oxfordshire countryside roll by.  She had her mind on other things.