Cripley Meadow
| Cripley Meadow | |
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 Cripley Meadow
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| Cripley Meadow shown within Oxfordshire | |
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | Oxford |
| Postcode district | OX2 |
| Dialling code | 01865 |
| Police | Thames Valley |
| Fire | Oxfordshire |
| Ambulance | South Central |
| EU Parliament | South East England |
| UK Parliament | |
| Website | Cripley Meadow Allotments Association |
Cripley Meadow lies between the Castle Mill Stream, a backwater of the River Thames, and the Cotswold Line railway to the east, and Fiddler's Island, on the main branch of the Thames to the west, in Oxford, England. It is to the south of the better known Port Meadow, a large meadow of common land. To the south is Sheepwash Channel which connects the Oxford Canal with the River Thames.
In October 1554, John Wayte (later Mayor of Oxford) was appointed along with two others to travel to London to give instructions concerning Cripley Meadow and Port Meadow.
In 1865, there was the possibility that the Great Western Railway (GWR) could become a major employer in Oxford since the company's railway carriage-making workshops, that were expected to provide 1,500 jobs, were to be sited in the city, moving from Paddington in London. The City of Oxford corporation, which thirty years earlier had opposed the railway, offered a lease on Cripley Meadow for the workshops. There was great enthusiasm for the initiative. However, the University of Oxford opposed the proposal, led by Goldwin Smith, a historian at University College, Oxford whose father had also been a director of GWR. A contract for the Cripley Meadow site was already in place, but a change in leadership at GWR meant that the workshops were built at Swindon instead.
Before 1891, it is likely that Cripley Meadow was used for horse grazing, similar to Port Meadow, and also hay production. By March 1891, about 14 acres of the land was let to the North Oxford and Jericho Allotments Association for allotments. Over the following years, the city engineer organized the deposit of street refuse on the site to raise its level above the river.
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Wikipedia