I.

Introduction

Oxfordshire (abbreviation Oxon), county, central-southern England, bounded on the north by the counties of Warwickshire and Northamptonshire, on the west by Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, and Swindon unitary authority, on the south by West Berkshire, Reading, and Wokingham unitary authorities, and on the east by Buckinghamshire. Under the local government reforms of 1974 the county's boundaries were extended to take in parts of the former county of Berkshire north of the Berkshire Downs, including the towns of Abingdon, Faringdon, Wallingford, and Wantage. Oxfordshire now has a land area of 2,608 sq km (1,007 sq mi). Primarily an agricultural county, lying almost entirely within the basin of the River Thames, it is renowned worldwide for the University of Oxford, the oldest in the United Kingdom. Oxford is the administrative centre.

II.

Land and Resources

Oxfordshire consists of two upland areas: the limestone North Oxfordshire Heights, to the north-east; and the chalky Berkshire Downs to the south. Between them lies a broad vale of rich clay, consisting of the Oxford Clay Vale and the Vale of the White Horse. This Oxford clay formation is exceptionally thick and rich in fossiliferous deposits; grassland predominates. To the west lie the limestone Cotswold Hills and to the east the chalky Chiltern Hills. The Thames flows through the county, joined by its tributaries—the Cherwell, the Evenlode, the Ock, and the Windrush.

Ironstone, sand, gravel, and clay are among the natural resources still worked. Much of the fertile rural area is devoted to arable and sheep farming; the wool trade contributed greatly to the county's prosperity in medieval times. Water from the Windrush was an important source of power for the famous Witney blanket-making industry. There is a large thermal power station near Didcot. The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) research establishment at Harwell is nearby. At Culham Laboratory, near Abingdon, is the Joint European Taurus (JET) project on nuclear fusion. Didcot is a major railway junction.

Oxfordshire has a moderate climate, with an average annual rainfall in the region of 635-760 mm (25-30 in).

III.

Population and Administration

The population of Oxfordshire is estimated at 605,492 (2001). Oxford (2001, 134,248) is the largest city and main commercial and industrial centre, as well as the seat of local government. Other important towns are Abingdon (1991, 35,234), Banbury (1994 estimate, 38,200), Henley-on-Thames (1991, 10,558), and Witney (1991, 20,377).

Oxfordshire has a county council and five local government district councils: Cherwell, Oxford, South Oxfordshire, Vale of the White Horse, and West Oxfordshire. Its administrative structure was unchanged by the local government restructuring in England in the 1990s. The police authority is the Thames Valley Police, with its headquarters at Kidlington, Oxford. The UKAEA Constabulary at Culham Laboratory is responsible for policing the United Kingdom's various nuclear power establishments and for escorting nuclear material between them. A Crown Court sits at Oxford.

IV.

Education and Culture

The University of Oxford dates from the 12th century; its oldest surviving college is University College (founded 1249). Once a bastion of male learning, the university now has more than 8,900 men and 5,800 women enrolled in any one academic year. Outstanding university buildings include the Sheldonian Theatre, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, the Radcliffe Camera, and the Bodleian Library, which is one of Great Britain's six copyright libraries. Oxford Brookes University, at Headington (formerly Oxford Polytechnic), was established in 1993. The John Radcliffe Hospital, in Headington, is one of Britain’s leading teaching hospitals.

The county has many independent schools, as well as a number of highly regarded state schools. Schools in Oxford include Oxford High, a girls' private school; and Magdalen College School, a boys' public school, founded to train choristers for Magdalen College (pronounced “maudlin”). Near Abingdon is a leading boys' public school Radley College (founded 1847), and the European School attached to the JET project at Culham.

Two celebrated children's classics have associations with the county. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was conceived in 1862, when the Oxford academic and mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson began the fantasy during a boating trip on the Thames to amuse the children of the dean of Christ Church College; one, 10-year-old Alice Liddell, was the model for the heroine of the book and of its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There. Dodgson published both books under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. The picturesque mill and weir at Mapledurham Lock, on the Oxfordshire-West Berkshire border to the north of Reading, was used by the artist E. H. Shepard in his illustrations for the novel The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. The poet, artist, and social reformer William Morris lived at Kelmscott. He later used the village's name both for his London residence and for the Kelmscott Press, founded in Hammersmith in 1890. Garsington Manor, near Wheatley, the home of Lady Ottoline Morrell, was a favourite venue for the Bloomsbury Group.

The Oxford University Dramatic Society (OUDS), founded in 1884, has achieved a high reputation for its productions, especially of Shakespeare. The Oxford Playhouse is one of the most highly esteemed repertory theatres in Britain.

Oxford United FC, based in Headington, is the county’s only club in the Football League. The club used to play its home games at the Manor Ground, but moved to the Kassam Stadium at the start of the 2001-2002 season. A number of fiercely competed sporting fixtures take place every year between the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The first University Boat Race and the first inter-varsity cricket match were held in 1827.

V.

Places of Interest

Oxford is the main tourism centre. The colleges of the university are the main attraction, but Oxford also has many outstanding museums, as well as parks and the botanic gardens beside Magdalen Bridge. Many visitors take a boat or punt on the Isis (as the Thames has been called in Oxford since the 14th century). Some of the finest architecture in England is to be seen in the city, many of whose churches, colleges, and other important buildings are of Cotswold stone. This honey-coloured stone, much used throughout the county, has a soft, warm glow, especially remarkable at sunset. The Ashmolean Museum, opened in 1683, is the oldest public museum in England. In addition to its great art collection, it houses the Museum of the History of Science, the finest collection of early astronomical, mathematical, and optical instruments in the world. The Pitt Rivers Museum (1884), housed behind the University Museum of Natural History, is a museum of ethnology and prehistory containing artefacts from around the world and from all historical periods. The original collection, comprising around 14,000 items, was bequeathed to Oxford University by General Pitt-Rivers in 1883, and with the continuing acquisition of new objects, the collection now includes over a million items.

The city has given rise to a number of expressions: an “Oxford accent”, these days often used to denote an affected manner of speaking; “Oxford bags”, trousers with very wide legs, fashionable among undergraduates in the 1920s and 1930s; “Oxford marmalade”, first made locally in the 1870s by Mrs Cooper, wife of an Oxford grocer.

The aid agency Oxfam was set up in the city in 1942 by a group of local people to help starving people in German-occupied countries affected by the British wartime trade embargo. Originally called the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief, it has developed into one of the world's leading non-governmental aid agencies, channelling support these days to people in the developing world. It became known as Oxfam and this name was adopted officially in 1965.

Oxford is used as a touring base for the area. The Cotswolds are close by. Also near Oxford is Blenheim Palace, home of the dukes of Marlborough. The manor of Woodstock, enclosed in the 12th century as a deer park and royal hunting ground, was presented to John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, and his heirs in perpetuity by the nation in gratitude for his famous victory over the French in 1704. The mansion was designed by Sir John Vanbrugh; the gardens were originally laid out by Henry Wise and later re-landscaped by Capability Brown. Sir Winston Churchill was born at Blenheim and is buried at Bladon nearby. Other tourism centres include the attractive Cotswold wool towns of Burford and Chipping Norton, and the Vale of the White Horse between Wantage and Faringdon. Banbury, immortalized in the old nursery rhyme “Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross”, was once famous for its cakes and ale.

Boating on the Thames is not just popular in Oxford. At Henley-on-Thames there is a straight stretch of river just over 2 km (1.2 mi), ideal for rowing races. The Henley Royal Regatta, founded in 1839, takes place annually in early July.

VI.

Economy

For centuries wool was the mainstay of the county, together with sheep and arable farming. The town of Witney has long been famous for blankets. Fruit is grown in the Vale of the White Horse and on the Downs, and preserves are manufactured. Oxfordshire is the most important centre for high-technology research and development and manufacturing in the United Kingdom outside London. Many high-tech companies are located in the county, attracted by the pool of skilled labour and research traditions associated with the University of Oxford and Harwell. About 12 per cent of Oxfordshire's workforce are graduates—the highest percentage in the country. The atomic energy research establishment at Harwell, established in 1946 on a disused airfield south of the city, marked the first stage in the British atomic energy research programme. It subsequently produced plutonium for the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment at Aldermaston, and during the 1970s and 1980s widened its scope into more general areas of high-tech research, including lasers. It was a major centre for irradiating silicon chips until the last of its nuclear reactors closed down in the late 1980s. Oxfordshire is also the UK centre of the performance car industry. The motor industry began locally when the Morris Car Company was set up at Cowley, a suburb of Oxford, in 1912. The Morris Oxford and the Morris Cowley were early models; after World War II came the Morris Minor and the Mini. Abingdon was the home of the famed MG sports car.

The county is the largest centre of the printing and publishing sector in the United Kingdom outside London. Printing and publishing have been carried out in Oxfordshire since the end of the 15th century. A landmark was the publication in 1884-1933 by the Oxford University Press of the 11-volume The Oxford English Dictionary.

VII.

History

Artefacts from the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic periods have been recovered along the Thames and elsewhere. Some 32 km (20 mi) south-west of Oxford, at Uffington, carved into the chalk hillside is the huge figure of a horse, the county's great archaeological monument. The Uffington White Horse, as it is known, is believed to date from the Iron Age. Wayland’s Smithy, a Neolithic burial site, is situated off the Ridgeway trail, about 13 km (8 mi) south of Wantage. Close to the Oxfordshire-Warwickshire border, north of Chipping Norton, is a group of Neolithic monuments known as the Rollright Stones.

The area was subsequently at different times part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia, and for a period under Danish rule. Alfred the Great, king of Wessex, was born in Wantage—the town was an important centre in Saxon times and was used as a meeting place by the Witenagemot (royal council). The county is listed in the Domesday Book, with Oxford as its centre and a number of well-populated market towns mentioned. Abingdon developed around an important Benedictine abbey founded in the 7th century. St Edmund of Abingdon was born in the town in the 12th century. Later an important market town, and the principal town of the former county of Berkshire, Abingdon has a noted town hall, designed by a pupil of Sir Christopher Wren, and an octagonal jail built by French prisoners-of-war during the Napoleonic Wars, and now used as a sports and arts centre. The wool trade brought immense prosperity to the region in the medieval period.

The foundation and growth of the University of Oxford from the 12th century onwards was of major importance, but not without controversy. Friction between the townspeople of Oxford and students at the university, “town and gown”, erupted in February 1355, when a pitched battle, subsequently known as the massacre of St Scholastica's Day, was fought and a number of students killed. Battles of greater significance took place in the county during the English Civil War, when the city of Oxford remained a leading Royalist stronghold. In World War II, Ditchley Park, north of Blenheim, was used by Winston Churchill as a secret weekend headquarters.