A Day Trip to Banbury Cross

19th October

A dozen things from a visit to Banbury.

1: Three trains, zero Cock Horses.

2: A Medieval cross which is really Victorian. In the Middle Ages three crosses stood in different locations around the town. All three, The White Cross in West Bar, The Bread Cross near Butchers Row and High Street and finally The High or Market Cross in Cornhill were all destroyed by puritans at the start of the 1600’s. The puritans disliked religious imagery and the superstitions associated with it.There are no remains of these crosses visible today but plaques mark their likely locations. The current Cross which was erected in 1859 to celebrate the marriage of Princess Victoria, eldest daughter of Queen Victoria to Prince Frederic of Prussia, reaches a height of 16 metres. The carvings on the lower section of the cross display the arms of the Town at different times and include the Town’s motto ‘Dominus nobis sol et scutum’ - which translates into ’God our sun and shield. The statues of Queen Victoria, Edward VII and George V were added in 1914 to mark the coronation of George V. On the upper sections are coats of arms or people who have a strong connection with the town. 

(Information above taken from an explanatory sign in the street nearby.)

3: A Fine Lady Upon A White Horse, but only a statue. This statue was funded and erected by the people of Banbury to commemorate the nursery rhyme which has made Banbury famous throughout the English speaking world:

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

This rhyme contains three essential elements: Banbury Cross, the ‘Cock Horse’ and a Fine Lady upon a White Horse. One explanation of the ‘cock horse’ is the children’s hobby horse and Banbury holds a Hobby Horse Festival in the first weekend of July each year, with a parade of hobby horse beasts’ through the town and Hobby Horse Races held in People’s Park. The statue of the Fine Lady upon a White Horse now brings the rhyme to life all year round. The statue was designed by Artcycle Ltd, cast in bronze and mounted on a plinth of local Hornton stone. The horse, which was sculpted by Denise Jutton is modelled on a Welsh Cob. The Fine Lady is depicted as the ’Queen of the May and incorporates many symbols of spring. 

(Information above taken from an explanatory sign in the street nearby.)

4: Large Ironstone fronted Whately Hall Hotel glowing in the sunshine in Horse Fair.A 17th century building but restored in 1949.

5: People’s Park with the town’s War Memorial.

6: Budgerigars and Cockatiels in the 1992 Jubilee Aviary. The aviary in People’s Park was rebuilt for Queen Elizabeth II’s Ruby Jubilee, the 40th anniversary of her accession.

7: The Oxford Canal running through the town centre between the Premier Inn and the usual chain restaurants, overshadowed by the huge Castle Quay Shopping Centre but also with the oldest working dry dock in Britain. Tooley’s Boatyard, now a schedule ancient monument, has been building and repairing narrowboats since 1790.

8: Former Cornhill Corn Exchange facade making a most impressive entrance into the Castle Quay Shopping Centre from Market Place.

9: A Brutalist Telephone Exchange (one which I’ve never been inside) named after the Cross rather than the town.

10: A building in Bridge Street with well maintained “ghost Signs”.

11: The River Cherwell, not pronounced how you’d think, with not much water, quite a lot of vegetation, and of course the obligatory shopping trolley.

12: A very clean railway station, rebuilt in 1958 and made smaller in 2016, from which to catch the first of my three trains home.

13: 41 photos from a Banbury day trip in a Flickr Album.