Kidlington

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Kidlington is a large village, no, it's a town actually and civil parish in the Cherwell District of Oxfordshire in the United Kingdom. It is located 8 km (5 miles) north of Oxford (though it is only a mile edge to edge) and 27 km (17 miles) south of Banbury, between the River Cherwell and the Oxford Canal.

Kidlington is a contender for largest village in England (as well as Europe) with a population, including contagious Gosford and Water Eaton (in Gosford and Water Eaton parish), but not neighbouring Yarnton or Begbroke, of over 17,500 (compared to 1,300 in 1901). Kidlington parish had a population of 13,719 according to the 2001 census (2006 est. 14,000). It has so far resisted proposals to become a town. Following a peremptory change by the Parish Council to Town status, the change was voted down in a ballot of the local electorate by 98%, and reversed.

Kidlington was originally called Cudelinga tun, derived from the tun (Anglo-Saxon word meaning settlement) of the Kidlings or sons of Cydel-hence. The Domesday Survey in 1086 mentions Chedelintone and by 1214 the spelling Kedelinton appears in a Calendar of Bodleian Charters.

On the North Eastern edge of the village lies St Mary The Virgin Church, a grade 1 listed building dating from 1220, with a Tudor rectory, fine medieval stained glass and a 220ft spire known as 'Our Lady's Needle'. The Tower contains a peal of eight bells which are still in use today on a regular basis. There is evidence of a church existing on the site from 1073. Behind the Church there are archaeological remains of a three sided moat and a causeway has recently been discovered which is possibly of Roman origin.

Alongside the Church is The Almshouse which was built by Sir William Morton in 1671 in memory of his wife and children and whose names are inscribed above the windows. Sir William was a Royalist Commander during the Civil War and lived in nearby Hampden Manor in Mill Street. Other famous residents of Hampden Manor include Sir John Vanburgh who lived here during the building of Blenheim Palace in Woodstock. The square tower water closet located in the front garden of Hampden Manor was built by Vanburgh. It drains into a stream that now runs underground along Mill Street into the nearby river Cherwell. Thomas Beecham formulated his medicine whilst living in a cottage near to the Manor, where he worked for a time as a gardener for John Sydenham.

The settlement, mentioned in Domesday (1086) grew steadily from an ancient village adjacent to the church. Here there are as many 18th century (Georgian) buildings as modern houses. Until the Enclosure acts in 1818, a large section south of the village was unenclosed common land, and the village was widely known as Kidlington-on-the-Green. Just prior to World War II, this land was built up in an estate known as Garden City.

Since 1945 many other estates have been built and today Kidlington has a modern shopping centre, library, large village hall, market and many modern dwellings. There is a good number of Pubs, cafes and restaurants in the village centre as well as dispersed through the village.

The village is home to the Headquarters of The Oxfordshire Fire and Rescue Service, as well as the Thames Valley Police and the County St. John Ambulance. Kidlington is also home to Oxford Airport, which has had a pilot training school since 1962. It has trained thousands of pilots for many airlines in over 40 different countries. Fox FM's "Flying Fox" helicopter is also based there. There are several industrial and business parks in the north of the village. The major European publishing company Elsevier has its UK head office in Kidlington.

There is a secondary school (Gosford Hill) and a handful of primary schools to deal with the expanding population.

The most famous resident of Kidlington is Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group, who still has a property in the village.

Strangely, the village lacks a railway station, in spite of being on the Cherwell Valley Line. The smaller village of Tackley to the north retains its station, where Kidlington did not.