Calthorpe is an historic manor in Oxfordshire, now a ward in the town of Banbury, Oxfordshire. It contains the modern housing estates of Cherwell Heights and Calthorpe.
Calthorpe
History
Calthorpe was anciently a manor, held until the 14th century by the Brancestre family. The last in the male line was Sir John Brancestre whose daughter and heiress Agnes Brancestre married Richard Danvers (d.1409) of Epwell, who thereafter made Calthorpe his seat. His son and heir was John Danvers (died 1449), four times a Member of Parliament for Oxfordshire. From the Danvers family the manor passed by purchase to the Copes, the Chamberlains, the Hawtaynes (whose arms survived in 1895 sculpted above the entrance of the manor house), the Dashwoods and the Cobbs. Easington was first mentioned in 1279 as a rural estate with a local mill, which was attached to the former Calthorpe Manor, whose demesne lands were subsequently leased out to local tenants. In 1431 Easington was purchased by John Danvers of Calthorpe from the Bishop of Lincoln, whose seat was Banbury Castle.
In 1247, hundreds of Banbury were valued at £5 a year and, in 1441, "certainty money" due from the northern part of the hundred was 89s 8d. It was made up of payments from Shutford, Claydon, Swalcliffe, Great Bourton and Little Bourton, Prescote, Hardwick, Calthorpe and Neithrop, Wickham, Wardington, Williamscot, Swalcliffe Lea and the former prebend of Banbury. By 1568, these, except the rent from Wardington, amounted to 69s 4d. In 1652, the total profits of court were valued at 103s 4d a year in "certainty money". In 1875, payments were made only by Williamscot, Swalcliffe, Prescote, Great and Little Bourton, Neithrop, Claydon and Shutford, since the rest were freed from their rent obligations.
On 20 January 1679, Sir John Reade purchased the estate of Calthorpe.
In 1853, Edward Cobb was lord of the hundreds of Banbury and Bloxham, which were leased, with Calthorpe House in Banbury, to Thomas Draper between 1862 and 1869, as was the hundred in 1875. It was included with the house in an auction, but the auction seems not to have gained legal status since, in 1896, Edward Cobb was still the lord of the manor and Thomas Draper was no longer there.
The estate was gradually being developed between 1900 and the 1930s. New housing began to grow significantly in the 1950s and 1960s. The land south of the New Foscote Hospital in Calthorpe and Easington farm was mostly open farmland until the early 1960s, as shown by the Ordnance Survey maps of 1947, 1955, and 1964. It had only a few farmsteads and houses, an allotment field (now under the Sainsbury's store), and the Municipal Borough of Banbury's small reservoir just south of Easington farm; a water spring lay to the south of it. Two minor streams ran from a spring near the allotment gardens and the land under today's Timms estate. An old clay pit, kiln and brick works lay near the Poets' Corner estate. The pit was of mid-Victorian origin and the buildings were marked on the 1881 O.S. map. The pit had been filled in by the 1920s, the buildings closed by the 1940s and the site built on by the late 1960s.
Amenities
Both Sainsbury's and Morrisons have a supermarket on the estate.
Schools
The Calthorpe estate does not have any major schools but is served by the Grange school, Cherwell Heights. There are two minor secondary and 2 primary schools on the estate. Dashwood School was moved out of the Calthorpe area to Grimsbury. The old school building is now being turned into houses and flats.
Recreational areas and parks
Calthorpe's largest park, Calthorpe Park, is near to the Sainsbury's store, leading to the Cherwell Heights estate. There are two other small parks on the estate.
Hospitals
The Horton General Hospital and The New Foscote Hospital are in the ward.
The Horton General Hospital is an NHS hospital located on the Oxford Road in Calthorpe. The hospital has 236 beds and was founded in 1872 by Mary-Ann Horton. There is a 1980s mobile phone mast on the north part of the hospital.
The Italianate Elms House on Oxford Road, which lies within the grounds of the Horton Hospital, is a substantial villa built in 1863 for Jonathan Gillet, one of the senior partners of Gillet's Bank, and is now the offices of the Primary Care Trust.
In 2005, there were rumours that the hospital might be closed, leading Banbury's MP, Tony Baldry, and a large proportion of the town's population to start a campaign to keep the hospital open. These rumours proved to be unfounded, since the plans had already been abandoned by both the NHS Trust and the Health Minister.