Banbury

When I was young I remember hearing the following nursery rhyme:

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.

I mentioned this to my husband who was raised in Florida. He'd never heard of it. I must, therefore, conclude that it's either an artifact of a New England upbringing or part of my English heritage. (Except for my maternal grandfather's side which goes back to the Mayflower, my other grandparents were 2nd or 3rd generation Americans who emigrated from Lancashire.) I mention all this because I took a little day trip to Banbury, Oxfordshire.

There's a lovely little museum dedicated to the history of Banbury, a town which dates back to at least 200 BC, as artifacts of an Iron Age settlement attest to. The area was settled by the Saxons around the late 5th century and it was a center for Anglo-Saxon settlement by the mid 6th century. During the English Civil War, Banbury was at one stage a Royalist town, due to its proximity to Oxford, the King's capital. The residents were known to be strongly Puritan and the town became pro-Parliamentarian. An old pub in the City, The Reindeer Inn, was reputed to have been used as a base by Oliver Cromwell.

The Banbury Museum explores the town's origins and history with displays on the Civil War, plush manufacturing (a luxurious type of cloth), and the Victorian market town. There's a very old plush loom on display; quite remarkable considering the heyday of plush was the early 1800s.

One item that caught my eye was the tag attached to a fancy dog collar.

In the Victorian era, Banbury was a prosperous market town. One particular industry that flourished was corset making. Even in those days, there were those who were the arbiters of what was considered a good woman's figure.

The Oxford Canal runs through Banbury and just below the museum is Tooley's Boatyard, a dockyard that has been in operation since 1778. It still services the narrowboats that ply the many English canals.

Banbury retains some of its old buildings, though a number were destroyed in WWII.

It's not exactly a prosperous town these days and lots of stores are empty - particularly those in the main shopping center - but it has a football team and a rugby team and it also has the Banbury Cross. The original Banbury Cross was erected in 1478, but it was pulled down in 1600 by Puritan iconoclasts who objected to the religious imagery. The present cross was erected in 1859.

It also has this beauty: the fine lady upon a white horse:

Alright, technically it's bronze, but you can't have everything.