Attractions and Places To See around Deddington - Top 20

A beautiful park with an obelisk as the centrefold, built in 2012 to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

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)

This building, designed by Edward George Bruton in the Gothic Revival style and built by Chesterman Brothers of Abingdon, was completed in October 1854 and is the fourth town hall building built in Banbury town from 1590 onwards. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with three bays facing the junction of the High Street and Market Place; the central section, which projected forward, featured an arched doorway on the ground floor and a balcony with an ogee headed window on the first floor. A clock tower and spire were added in 1860. The principal room was an assembly hall on the first floor. The building was extended to the south west to create a council chamber in 1891. The town hall was the headquarters of Banbury Borough Council until the council moved its administration to the mechanics' institute in Marlborough Road in 1930. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banbury_Town_Hall

Designed by Edward Bruton in 1854, Banbury Town Hall is a magnificent Gothic-style building in the town centre. It was once used as a police station and cells still exist in the building. However, the prisoners are gone today and the town hall is now used for weddings and conferences.

Built in 1727 in the Oxfordshire countryside, Wroxton Abbey is an impressive Jacobean manor complete with a great hall, minstrels' gallery and chapel. The house is named after the original 12th-century abbey that was destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536. Its ruins can still be seen in the grounds today. In 1932, the house was donated to Trinity College, Oxford and it now serves as a campus for the American university Farleigh Dickinson. You can visit the 56 acres of lawns, lakes and woodlands, as well as a number of follies. Entrance is free and the gardens are open daily from dawn to dusk. You can find more information, here: https://www.wroxtonabbey.org/

Very nice garden https://www.gardenvisit.com/gardens/wroxton_abbey_garden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wroxton_Abbey

Tusmore House in Oxfordshire, built for Wafic Said, the Syrian-born millionaire, has been declared the best new building in the classical tradition at the annual Georgian Group awards. The house is on the scale of the great houses of the 18th century. Its portico of solid stone rivals that of the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields in London. The quality of the scagliola columns in the central rotunda has been compared with the finest craftsmanship of the imperial palaces of St Petersburg. The owner and architects refused to be drawn on costs but the house has been valued at £35 million. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1475634/The-English-country-house-rises-once-more.html

IT IS the kind of gesture to make even a monarch blush. One of Britain’s richest and most controversial businessmen has built a lavish monument to the Queen in his back garden. Wafic Said, the Syrian-born billionaire, has erected a 92ft stone obelisk in the grounds of his 3,000-acre Oxfordshire country estate, Tusmore Park, and dedicated it to the Queen’s diamond jubilee. The monument, which took two years to complete and weighs 300 tons, is the biggest obelisk to be built in Britain since the 18th century. It is topped with a 5ft metal cap covered in gold that catches the sun’s rays and the “clouds scudding by”, according to its architect Andrew Lockwood, a partner at Whitfield Lockwood Architects, Co Durham. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tycoons-300-ton-homage-to-queen-8kkpklnvnvz