Cutteslowe is a suburb of north
Oxford
Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
, between
Sunnymead
Sunnymead is a suburb in the northern part of Oxford, England, just south of the Oxford Ring Road ( A40).
Close by are the suburbs of Cutteslowe to the north, Summertown to the south and Upper Wolvercote to the west. To the east is the River C ...
and
Water Eaton.
Archaeology and toponym
The
toponym
Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of ''toponyms'' ( proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...
"Cutteslowe" is derived from
Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...
. The earliest known record of it is from AD 1004 as ''Cuðues hlaye'', which seems to be a mis-spelling of ''Cuðues hlawe''. A ''hlāw'' is a
burial mound
Burial, also known as interment or inhumation, is a method of final disposition whereby a dead body is placed into the ground, sometimes with objects. This is usually accomplished by excavating a pit or trench, placing the deceased and objec ...
, in this case for someone called Cūþen or Cūþwine. The village of
Cuddesdon, about southeast of Cutteslowe, is also named after someone called Cūþwine. It is not clear whether the two toponyms refer to the same Cūþwine.
The
Domesday Book
Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...
of 1086 records Cutteslowe as ''Codeslam'' or ''Codeslaue''. Later mediaeval spellings include ''Cudeslawe'', ''Codeslowe'', ''Kodeslawe'', ''Codeslawe'', ''Cudeslawia'', ''Cudeslowe'', ''Cudeslauya'', ''Cuddeslawe'', ''Culdeslauia'' and ''Coteslowe''. In 1797 it was recorded as ''Cutslow'' or ''Old Cutslow''.
The burial mound was prehistoric, and was razed in the 13th century after two people were found murdered in the hollow below it. An
assize
The courts of assize, or assizes (), were periodic courts held around England and Wales until 1972, when together with the quarter sessions they were abolished by the Courts Act 1971 and replaced by a single permanent Crown Court. The assizes e ...
roll records that in 1261 a jury of
Wootton hundred court "testify that evil doers are wont to lurk in the hollow of the how, and that many robberies and homicides have been committed there. Therefore the
sheriff
A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland that is commonly transla ...
was commanded to level the how."
Manor
By 1004
St Frideswide's Minster in Oxford held two
hides of land at Cutteslowe.
St Frideswide's became an
Augustinian Priory
A priory is a monastery of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a prior or prioress. Priories may be houses of mendicant friars or nuns (such as the Dominicans, Augustinians, Franciscans, and Carmelites), or monasteries of ...
, which continued to hold Cutteslowe until it was suppressed in 1525.
[ It then passed to ]Thomas Wolsey
Thomas Wolsey ( – 29 November 1530) was an English statesman and Catholic bishop. When Henry VIII became King of England in 1509, Wolsey became the king's Lord High Almoner, almoner. Wolsey's affairs prospered and by 1514 he had become the ...
's Cardinal's College until Wolsey's downfall and attainder
In English criminal law, attainder or attinctura was the metaphorical "stain" or "corruption of blood" which arose from being condemned for a serious capital crime (felony or treason). It entailed losing not only one's life, property and hereditar ...
in 1529.[ Cardinal's College became ]King Henry VIII
Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...
's College until 1545.[
Cutteslowe changed hands three times before it was bought in about 1588 by William Lenthall, grandfather of the ]William Lenthall
William Lenthall (1591–1662) was an English politician of the Civil War period. He served as Speaker of the House of Commons for a period of almost twenty years, both before and after the execution of King Charles I.
He is best remembered f ...
who was Speaker
Speaker may refer to:
Society and politics
* Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly
* Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture
* A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially:
** In ...
of the Long Parliament
The Long Parliament was an English Parliament which lasted from 1640 until 1660. It followed the fiasco of the Short Parliament, which had convened for only three weeks during the spring of 1640 after an 11-year parliamentary absence. In Septe ...
.[ Between 1611 and 1625 John Lenthall sold Cutteslowe to Sir John Walter of Sarsden near ]Churchill, Oxfordshire
Churchill is a village and civil parish about southwest of Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire in the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Since 2012 it has been part of the Churchill and Sarsden joint parish council area, sharing a parish c ...
.[ Most of the estate was sold by a later Sir John Walter in 1703, and by 1737 had been acquired by ]Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniq ...
.[ Sir John sold about to Dr Robert South who used it to endow his school at Islip, Oxfordshire.][
Sir John sold most of what remained in 1710 to ]John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough
General John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, 1st Prince of Mindelheim, 1st Count of Nellenburg, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, (26 May 1650 – 16 June 1722 O.S.) was an English soldier and statesman whose career spanned the reign ...
, in whose family it remained until 1811, when George Spencer-Churchill, 6th Duke of Marlborough sold or exchanged his part to Francis Gregory.[ In 1918 Gregory's granddaughters sold Cutteslowe to the Soden family.][ The Sodens sold some of the land for development in 1931 and the remainder to ]Oxford City Council
Oxford City Council is the lower-tier local government authority for the city of Oxford in England, providing such services as leisure centres and parking. Social Services, Education and Highways services (amongst others) are provided by Oxfor ...
in 1936, which turned it into Cutteslowe Park.[
]
Turnpike
The main road between Oxford and Banbury passes through Cutteslowe. It was turnpiked in the 18th century and disturnpiked in the 19th century.
Cutteslowe Park
North of the A40 Elsfield Way is Cutteslowe Park, which was made a public park in 1936.
Cutteslowe Walls
Between 1934 and 1959 the Cutteslowe Walls excluded the council house
A council house is a form of British public housing built by local authorities. A council estate is a building complex containing a number of council houses and other amenities like schools and shops. Construction took place mainly from 1919 ...
tenants of the Cutteslowe Estate from an estate of private houses between them and Banbury Road. A private developer, Clive Saxton’s Urban Housing Company, built the private houses.[ The northern wall divided Wolsey Road from Carlton Road, the southern Aldrich Road from Wentworth Road.] The walls were nine feet tall and topped with spikes.
Soon after the Cuttleslowe Walls were built, a campaign was started to have them demolished, led by Communist Party of Great Britain
The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB ...
(CPGB) activist Abraham Lazarus. Lazarus, who often went by the pseudonym "Bill Firestone", was already well known in the city of Oxford for having organised a rent strike on the Florence Park housing estate in Cowley, and chairing the 1934 Oxford Pressed Steel Company
Pressed Steel Company Limited was a British car body manufacturing business founded at Cowley near Oxford in 1926 as a joint venture between William Morris, Budd Corporation of Philadelphia USA, which held the controlling interest, and a Br ...
strike committee.[ On 11 May 1935, the Oxford branch of the CPGB and Lazarus gathered a crowd of over 2,000 people to call for the demolition of the Cuttleslowe Walls, and approached the wall wielding pickaxes.] However, Oxford City Police intercepted the march and defended the walls.[
During the ]Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...
, a tank whose crew was trying to return from Banbury Road to its base on Elsfield Way took a wrong turn and demolished one of the walls rather than turn back. The wall was rebuilt, but after escalating public protests and several unofficial attempts, the walls were eventually officially demolished after the council bought the land the walls stood on for £1,000.[
A small fragment of the Aldrich Road wall existed in a private garden in Wentworth Road until the 1980s. A ]blue plaque
A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving as a historical marker. The term ...
was erected by the Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Board
The Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Board established in 1999 was the brainchild of Sir Hugo Brunner, then Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire, and Edwin Townsend-Coles, Chairman of the Oxford Civic Society. The Board is an autonomous voluntary body whose ...
close to the site of the southern wall in 2006. Part of the wall was later taken to Oxford Town Hall where it is currently on display inside the Museum of Oxford's dedicated Cutteslowe Wall exhibit.[
]
References
Bibliography
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External links
Cutteslowe Community Association
Map of Cutteslowe at Google Maps
*
{{Oxford
Areas of Oxford
Walls