Bicester ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the Cherwell district of Oxfordshire, England, north-east of Oxford. The town is a notable tourist attraction due to the Bicester Village shopping centre. The historical town centre – designated as a conservation area – has a local market and numerous independent shops and restaurants. Bicester also has a town council and a mayor.
The town has long had good transport links, being at the intersection of two Roman roads (Akeman Street and a north–south route between Dorchester and Towcester). It has direct rail connections to Oxford, London and Birmingham, and is on the route of under-construction East West Rail which will link it directly to Milton Keynes and Cambridge. The A41 primary road runs through the town, connecting it to Aylesbury, the M40 and the A34.
Bicester experienced significant growth in the 20th century due to its strategic military role, with RAF Bicester established in 1917 and a major ordnance depot built in 1942 to support World War II operations. These installations spurred post-war urban development. RAF Bicester closed and has since been repurposed for civilian use as a heritage centre.
Bicester is one of the fastest-growing towns in Oxfordshire. It lies within the Oxford-Cambridge Arc, a nationally designated area for growth and development, and has expanded rapidly in recent generations, and more residential development is planned to bring the population up to around 50,000. The town was awarded Garden Town status by the government in 2014, although the designation has been criticised for not having a substantive effect on the way development is carried out in the town. Nonetheless, high-quality and environmentally friendly housing stock has been constructed. Examples of new development include Elmsbrook the North West Bicester eco-town and the self-built homes at Graven Hill.
Toponymy There are several theories about the origin of the name Bicester. One theory is that it may be derived from a personal name Beorna, meaning the 'Fort of the Warriors'. It may also be derived from a Latin form Bi-cester, meaning 'two forts'—Alchester is southwest of the town, and Chesterton village is on the course of Akeman Street, the Roman road between Watling Street and Cirencester, about northwest of Alchester. Bicester has been inhabited since the mid-7th century and its name has been written in various ways including Berncestre, Burencestre, Burcester, Biciter and Bissiter; the John Speed map of 1610 shows four different spellings, and historian G. H. Dannatt found 45 variants in wills from the 17th and 18th centuries.
History
Early history
Bicester lies close to the junction of two Roman roads – Akeman Street, an east–west route between St Albans and Cirencester, and a north–south route between Dorchester and Towcester, which lies under Queen's Avenue. A Roman fort at Alchester lies southwest of the town. The West Saxons established a settlement in the 6th century at a nodal point of these ancient routes.
Ecclesiastical history
St. Edburg’s Church in Bicester was founded as a minster, perhaps in the mid-7th century after St. Birinus converted Cynegils, King of Wessex, following their meeting near Blewbury. The site was just east of the old Roman road between Dorchester and Towcester that passed through the former Roman town Alchester. The earliest church was probably a timber structure serving the inhabitants of the growing Saxon settlements on either side of the River Bure, and as a mission centre for the surrounding countryside. Archaeological excavations at Procter's Yard identified the ecclesiastical enclosure boundary, and a large cemetery of Saxon graves suggesting a much larger churchyard has been excavated on the site of the Catholic Church car park almost opposite St. Edburg's.
The first documentary reference is the Domesday Book of 1086 which records it as Berencestra, its two manors of Bicester and Wretchwick being held by Robert D'Oyly 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 River Thames.
By the end of the 13th century, Bicester was the centre of a deanery of 33 churches. The remains of an Augustinian priory founded between 1182 and 1185 survive in the town centre. It is unclear when St. Edburg's Church was rebuilt in stone, but the 12th-century church seems to have had an aisleless cruciform plan. The earliest surviving material includes parts of the nave's north wall, parts of an originally external zigzag string course, the north and south transepts, and the external clasping buttresses of the chancel. The triangular-headed opening at the end of the north wall of the nave was probably an external door of the early church. Three round-headed Norman arches at the end of the nave mark the position of a 13th-century tower.
The Augustinian Priory was founded by Gilbert Bassett around 1183 and endowed with land and buildings around the town and other parishes, including and the quarry at Kirtlington, at what is now called Wretchwick, at Stratton Audley, and on Gravenhill and Arncott. It also held the mill at Clifton and had farms let to tenants at Deddington, Grimsbury, Waddesdon, and Fringford. Although these holdings were extensive and close to the market at Bicester, they appear to have been poorly managed and did not produce much income for the priory.
The priory appropriated the church in the early 13th century. A south aisle was added, and arches were opened in the nave and south transept walls to connect the new aisle with the main body of the church.
A further extension was made in the 14th century when the north aisle was built. The arched openings in the north wall of the nave are supported by octagonal columns. The Perpendicular Gothic north chapel (now vestry) is of a similar date, and on the east wall are two windows. The chapel originally had an upper chamber used later for the vicars' grammar school, accessed from an external staircase which forms part of the north eastern buttress.
In the 15th century, the upper walls of the nave were raised to form a clerestory with square-headed Perpendicular Gothic windows. The earlier central tower and its nave arch were taken down and the nave roof was rebuilt (the present roof is a copy of this design built in 1803). The columns of the north arcade were undercut, making them appear very slim and the capitals top heavy. In the east bay of the nave, there are carved decorations probably forming part of a canopied tomb originally set between the columns. The west tower was built in three stages, each stage marked by a horizontal string course running around the outside. The construction would have taken several years to complete. The battlements and crockets on the top of the tower were replaced in the mid 19th century.
The priory church was built around 1200 and enlarged around 1300 in association with the construction of the Purbeck marble tomb of St. Eadburh. This may have been the gift of the priory's patron Henry de Lacy, 3rd Earl of Lincoln. The walled rectangular enclosure of the priory lay just south of the church. The gatehouse was on the site of 'Chapter and Verse' Guesthouse in Church Lane. The dovecote and houses in Old Place Yard lie within the central precinct. St. Edburg's House is built partly over the site of the large priory church. This was linked by a cloister to a quadrangle containing the refectory, kitchens, dormitory, and prior's lodging. The priory farm buildings lay in the area of the present church hall, and these had direct access along Piggy Lane to land in what is now the King's End estate.
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.
Military history 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 English Civil War (1642–49) Bicester was used as the headquarters of parliamentary forces. Following the outbreak of the French Revolutionary 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 1802 after the Treaty of Amiens, but when hostilities resumed in 1804, concerns over potential invasion led to 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 along with 2 lieutenants, an ensign, 6 sergeants, 6 corporals and 120 privates. Their training and drills 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'.
15th to 18th centuries
The lord of the manor of Market End was the 1st Earl of Derby Sir Thomas Stanley, who had married Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII. Sir Thomas placed the crown on the head of the new King Henry VII at the Battle of Bosworth, and as the step-father of Henry VII he was granted many manors. In his 1593 will, the 4th Earl of Derby, Sir Henry Stanley, bequeathed the manor to his second son Sir William Stanley of Lathom, Lancashire. William became the 6th Earl of Derby in 1594 when his older brother Ferdinando, the 5th Earl, mysteriously died. In 1597, the 6th Earl 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.
Edward Hemins was running a bell-foundry in Bicester by 1728 and remained in business until at least 1743. At least 19 of his church bells are known to survive, including some of those in the parishes of Ambrosden, Bletchingdon, Piddington and Wootton in Oxfordshire and Culworth in Northamptonshire.