Untitled - Council for British Archaeology

Many of the existing lanes are documented by name from an early
date. Church Street, Great (now Old) Bridge Street and Little Bridge
Street occur in medieval court rolls. Tank Lane (renamed King's Street in
1935) and Humber Lane are recorded in the 16th century. Other lanes
not identifiable by name in the documentary record were clearly in
existence by the same period, from evi-dence of frontages of surviving
buildings of that date.
The larger part of the settlement is Bloxham 'South, which contains
the church standing on its knoll of high ground. The church is roughly
in the middle of an ovoid area whose perimeter is defined by Merrivale's
Lane and Little Green on the N. side following the break of slope,
and then by King's Street on the W. This alignment looks suspiciously
like the circuit of an early village boundary bank. Church Street and
the former Church Green form the central axis of this nucleus. More
extensive areas of green lie immediately beyond its margins, especially
on the N. and NW. (see below). Old and Little Bridge Streets both
converge on a single entry through this perimeter on the N. Queen's
Street seems to represent early ribbon development along the original
principal entry route from the SW. with a relatively late secondary nucleus
developing around the Cumberford crossroads.
In so far as any particular focus can be distinguished in Bloxham
North, the main early centre seems to have been the slightly skewed
crossroads by the Elephant and Castle, approached via the Old Bridge Road.
The Little Bridge Road gave access to a second and probably later
nucleus around a small green near the site of the Beauchamp manor-house.
Between these two foci the broad northern end of High Street, with its
parallel back lane, Workhousë Lane, comes as close as any part of
Bloxham to resembling a medieval planned development. The main evidence
to support the suggestion that this is a relatively late intrusive element
is (i) its unusual width, (ii) it does not give direct access at its
S. end to one of the original bridges, and (iii) its N. end is not in
direct alignment with the main Banbury road. On the dther hand the
property pattern here is not conspicuously regular, and it must be
admitted that the evidence is far from conclusive.
The densely-packed but irregular pattern of building reflects
the character of the typical 'open' village, and there are clear signs
of encroachment over streets and greens in many parts of the village,
indicated by irregular frontages and 'islands' of building.
From before 1514 to the 1802 enclosure the main streets were all barred
by gates at their entry to the village.
The internal street-plan ofBloxham' has undergone some significant
changes since the late 18th century:-
(1) The most important change was the construction of a new High
Street through the middle of the village in the early 19th century by
the Banbury and Chipping Norton Turnpike Trustees.