Prescote | |
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Prescote shown within Oxfordshire | |
Population | 16 (2001 census) |
OS grid reference | SP4746 |
Civil parish |
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District | |
Shire county | |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | Banbury |
Postcode district | OX17 |
Dialling code | 01295 |
Police | Thames Valley |
Fire | Oxfordshire |
Ambulance | South Central |
EU Parliament | South East England |
UK Parliament | |
Prescote is a hamlet and civil parish about 4 miles (6.4 km) north of Banbury in Oxfordshire. Its boundaries are the River Cherwell in the southeast, a tributary of the Cherwell called Highfurlong Brook in the west, and Oxfordshire's boundary with Northamptonshire in the northeast.
Prescote's toponym probably means "priest's cottage", referring to a cottage either owned by a priest or more likely inhabited by one. Legend associates Prescote with Saint Fremund, a Mercian prince held to have been martyred in the 9th century AD.
The Domesday Book of 1086 does not mention Prescote. The manor did exist by 1208-09, when the Bishop of Lincoln was the feudal overlord. Prescote comprised two manors that were held separately until 1417-1419, when John Danvers of Calthorpe acquired both of them. In 1796 Sir John Danvers, Baronet, died without a male heir and left Prescote to his son-in-law Augustus Richard Butler. In 1798 Butler sold the estate to the Pares family, who in 1867 sold it to Samuel Jones-Loyd, 1st Baron Overstone. In 1883 Baron Overstone died without a male heir and left his estates to his daughter, Harriet, Lady Wantage. On her death in 1920 Prescote was sold to A.P. McDougall, whose Midland Marts company opened a cattle stockyard in 1921 beside Banbury Merton Street railway station. By 1964 Prescote belonged to Anne Crossman, the wife of Richard Crossman M.P. Crossman was a descendant of the Danvers family.