The best running trails around Hanwell

Gorgeous views across the countryside and farmland surrounding Hanwell, Oxfordshire.

Hanwell is a beautiful quaint Oxfordshire village situated around 3 miles from Banbury city centre. It features a beautiful Grade I listed 12th-century church and great local pub, The Moon & Sixpence.

This church stands out with its rather unique styles - quite unlike most churches in the country the byzantic influence is obvious. It is clearly visible that the tower was added a bit later.

At one time Banbury had many crosses (the High Cross, the Bread Cross and the White Cross), but these were destroyed by Puritans in 1600.[7][50] Banbury remained without a cross for more than 250 years until the current Banbury Cross was erected in 1859 at the centre of the town to commemorate the marriage of Victoria, Princess Royal (eldest child of Queen Victoria) to Prince Frederick of Prussia. The current Banbury Cross is a stone, spire-shaped monument decorated in Gothic form. Statues of Queen Victoria, Edward VII and George V were added in 1914 to commemorate the coronation of George V. The cross is 52 feet 6 inches (16 m) high, and topped by a gilt cross. Towns with crosses in England before the reformation were places of Christian pilgrimage. The English nursery rhyme "Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross", in its several forms, may refer to one of the crosses destroyed by Puritans in 1600.[50] In April 2005, Princess Anne unveiled a large bronze statue depicting the Fine Lady upon a White Horse of the nursery rhyme.[51] It stands on the corner of West Bar and South Bar, just yards from the present Banbury Cross. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banbury#Banbury_Cross)

The oldest parts of the Church of England parish church of Saint John the Baptist are the nave and the arcade of the north aisle, both of which were built late in the 12th century. They are in the transitional style between Norman and Early English. In the 13th century the nave and north aisle were extended westwards by the addition of a fourth bay. In the 14th century a clerestory and a two-bay south aisle were added to the nave and most of the doors and windows were remodelled. Also in the 14th century the interior was decorated with wall paintings including a Pietà, a Saint George and a Doom. The bell tower was built around 1400 and the present Perpendicular Gothic east window of the chancel was added in the 15th century. Many of the wall paintings were painted over with limewash after the English Civil War. The tower has a ring of five bells, all cast by Henry III Bagley of Chacombe in 1741. They are currently unringable because the fourth bell is cracked. St. John's is now one of eight ecclesiastical parishes in the Ironstone Benefice. Non-conformist groups in Hornton included Baptists in the 17th century and Quakers in the 17th and 18th centuries. Hornton had a Primitive Methodist congregation by 1836, which had built its own chapel by 1842. Hornton's present Methodist church was built in 1884.

The mid-1970s British Telecom telephone exchange building dwarfs the house and buildings behind Castle Street.

St Mary's Church, Banbury. It was built in the 1790s to replace the Medieval one damaged during the English Civil War. The church was designed by Samuel Pepys Cockerell, with a tower and portico added by Charles Robert Cockerell in 1818 to 1822. The inside of the church was re-ordered in the 1860s and 1870s by the then vicar Henry Back, an Anglo-Catholic, to make it more suitable for Eucharistic worship. He commissioned Arthur Blomfield to oversee the re-ordering and to decorate the church in a Byzantine style. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mary%27s_Church,_Banbury

This statue was funded and erected by the people of Banbury to commemorate the nursery rhyme which has made Banbury famous throughout the English speaking world: Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross, To see a Fine Lady upon a White Horse, With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, She shall have music wherever she goes. This rhyme contains three essential elements: Banbury Cross, the “Cock Horse” and a Fine Lady on a White Horse. One explanation of the “cock horse” is the children’s hobby horse and Banbury holds a Hobby Horse Festival in the first weekend of July each year, with a parade of Hobby Horse “beasts” through the town and Hobby Horse races held in People’s Park. The raised left arm not only balances the raised right leg of the horse, it represents the creative side of the brain while the right arm holds the reins showing motor control. http://www.banbury.gov.uk/Banbury-Town-Council/fine_lady_statue-3818.aspx