Local history: Remembering the Battle of Cropredy Bridge in 1644

Leading up to the battle Sir William Waller was on Crouch Hill near Banbury with his Parliament army watching the King’s army heading north. He then moved to the high ground at Great Bourton where he could see the Royalists heading up the Cherwell Valley. Waller then took off with his men and crossed the Cherwell at Slat Mill and engaged with the Royalists and then battled as far as Hays Bridge on the A361.

One day many years ago I walked down Stanwell Lane in Great Bourton which had recently been widened and I noticed a Robinette cannonball exposed in the bank. Robinettes were small cannons, the balls of which were often used in cluster shots in larger guns and it was likely dropped by Waller’s men.

In 1574 The squire of Willamscote Walter Calcott built a boy’s school and installed a master and seven places were allotted to Bourton boys. Moving on to the 1600s Charles Mansell was the miller at Slat Mill which was also a fulling mill (fulling is the cleansing, beating and thickening of cloth and this facility was often leased to Banbury drapers). Mansell’s two sons went to the Williamscote school and both entered the clergy.

For most of the civil war Charles was based in Oxford and Mansell’s son Edward was his chaplain there. One day Edward went for a walk around Oxford and was captured by Roundheads then taken to Abingdon where it is assumed that he was killed as he was never heard of again. When the Williamscote school closed in 1857 the school bell was donated to the newly built Cropredy school where it still remains today.

The photograph attached in this article shows Slat Mill in around 1900. Our thanks to Brian Cannon for this article. If you want to send an article to the Banbury Guardian you can email us at [email protected] or submit a story via our news portal at https://submit.nationalworld.com/