Living in Banbury: area guide to homes, schools and transport

A wide choice of affordable flats and houses set in rural surroundings attract buyers who want to put down roots in the small Oxfordshire town of Banbury.
Period homes: White Lion Walk is an attractive road off Banbury High Street
Anthea Masey12 February 2016

Property in Banbury

Banbury’s big selling point is the wide choice of affordable homes. The two most expensive houses currently for sale are a four-bedroom detached modern house with a half-acre garden in popular Bloxham Road, on the market for £595,000, and a five-bedroom detached Edwardian house in Berrymoor Road in the same area of town, on the market for £530,000.

The town also has plenty of four-bedroom modern detached houses for sale under £300,000, while a three-bedroom Victorian terrace house sells for about £190,000 and a similar two-bedroom house sells for less than £150,000. One-bedroom flats start at about £90,000.

Outside Banbury, in the villages, it is a different story. Nicholas Rudge, from estate agents Savills, in Banbury, said that in the popular villages to the south, such as Bloxham, Adderbury and Deddington, two-bedroom Victorian cottages sell for about £300,000. These villages also have beautiful Georgian and other period houses built of the local Horton ironstone, which is an unusual gingerbread-like colour. Back in the town centre there are Regency and Victorian two- and three-storey terrace houses and more modern houses and flats from the Thirties onwards.

Eydon is a popular village. In the Cotswolds, the targets are Churchill, Kingham and Icomb, and on the Oxfordshire and Warwickshire border are Shenington and Epwell.

In Banbury itself, Stephen Lilley, from Wigwam, highlighted Bloxham Road, where there are large houses of various vintages with big gardens, and Hightown Road, with five-bedroom Victorian houses for up to £450,000.

Banbury is surrounded by pretty villages like Hanwell
Graham Hussey

What's new

Middleton Chase in the village of Middleton Cheney is a Bovis Homes development of 79 (22 affordable) two-, three-, four- and five-bedroom homes with prices ranging from £179,995 for a two-bedroom coach house to £464,995 for a five-bedroom detached house. The development will be completed by the end of the 2013.


Woodland Gardens (01295 721878 and Carter Jonas 01865 511444) in Milton Road in the village of Bloxham is a development of 78 (24 affordable) two-, three- and four-bedroom homes; only three, three-bedroom houses remain with prices starting at £285,000.
 

Travel

Banbury is 60 miles from London by the M40, which connects the capital with Birmingham. Trains from Banbury go to Marylebone and take about an hour. An annual season ticket will set you back £5,028.


Council

Cherwell district council is Conservative-controlled, and Band D council tax for the current 2013/2014 year is £1,587.83.


Pictures by Graham Hussey

Lifestyle

Shops and restaurants

Banbury’s attractive town centre is well-looked after. There are large planters decorated with images of the sun, another Banbury symbol, and these are overflowing with flowers in spring and summer.

There is a market on Thursdays and Saturdays and a farmers’ market on the first Friday of the month, but the town is showing signs of recessionary stress. The large shopping centre, Castle Quay, which is cleverly hidden away behind Banbury’s period town-centre streets, has plenty of high street names — Monsoon, H&M, Gap, Debenhams, Next and River Island — but there are unlet units, too.

The surrounding streets look lovely bathed in spring sunshine but there are no independent shops — apart from antiquarian, second-hand and new bookshop, Books and Ink, in White Lion Walk — that stand out from the crowd. Look out, though, for bakeries selling the famous Banbury cake, a fruit-filled pastry similar to an Eccles cake.

Aga and Fired Earth have shops at Twyford Mill in Adderbury, while the huge draw of Bicester Village, with designer outlets from the likes of Burberry, Gucci and Marni, is a tempting 20-mile drive down the M40. Bread and Milk is a popular deli and café in Bloxham — and in this part of the world, a cosy pub serving good food is the preferred place to eat out. Top of most people’s lists are the Black Boy Inn at Milton, now part of the Marco Pierre White empire, Ye Olde Reindeer in Banbury, the Joiners Arms in Bloxham and the Saye & Sele Arms in Broughton.

 


Open space

People’s Park in Banbury has a bowling green, a rose garden, an aviary, tennis courts and a children’s playground.

Spiceball Park is a country park on the eastern side of town. Banbury sits between two areas of outstanding natural beauty — the Cotswolds and the Chilterns — and rambling is a popular outdoor activity. The town is also situated on the River Cherwell and the Oxford Canal with over 70 miles of towpaths.

Three things you may not know about Banbury
What links one of the most famous books of English literature with a graveyard in Banbury?
Jonathan Swift hints in the 1726 edition of Gulliver’s Travels that he found the name Gulliver on tombstones in the graveyard of St Mary’s church in Banbury.

What do Queen Elizabeth, Lady Godiva and Celia Fiennes, a member of the Fiennes family of nearby Broughton Castle and a famous late 17th century traveller, have in common?
They have all been named as the “fine lady” in the nursery rhyme, but to this day her true identity remains a mystery.

How did Banbury celebrate a royal wedding and a royal coronation?
The Victorian Banbury cross was erected in 1859 to commemorate the marriage the previous year of Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter, Victoria, to Prince Frederick of Prussia. In 1914 statues of Queen Victoria, Edward VIII and George V were added to the cross to celebrate the coronation of George V.

Schools

Primary school

Banbury and its surrounding villages have many primary schools judged “good” by the government’s education watchdog, Ofsted, but only Great Tew, in the village of the same name is judged “outstanding.”

Comprehensive

The best performing comprehensive schools are: Blessed George Napier RC (co-ed, ages 11 to 18) in Addison Road; the Warriner School (ages 11 to 16, with a sixth form opening in September 2013) in Bloxham, which has its own 120 acre-farm, the largest in the country; and Chenderit School in Middleton Cheney; the first two are judged “good”, the last is “outstanding”.

Private

The private prep schools are: St John’s Priory (co-ed, ages two to 11) in St John’s Road and Carrdus School (co-ed ages two to 11) at Overthorpe Hall. The private secondary schools are Tudor Hall (girls’ day and boarding, ages 11 to 18) in Wykham Park and Bloxham School (co-ed day and boarding, ages 11 to 18) in Bloxham. Further afield Winchester House in Brackley is a top prep school and the Warwickshire grammar schools are also a popular choice.

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