This page gives a list of the sites in the ‘Banburyshire Ancient Sites’ guide. They are also listed graphically in the sites map page. Note that sometimes a site may be in more than one category because of its ambiguous nature.
Some years ago now, the starting point of this guide was walking the standing stones of North Oxfordshire. While our local pre-history ‘megaliths’ represent a spectacular link to our past, walking the stones can give access to a wider range of sites which convey a far better impression of the ancient local landscape than just visiting the stones alone.
This section covers ancient earthworks which are not ‘forts’ or ‘camps’. Their condition varies, and of all our local ancient sites they are – despite their technical legal protection as ‘scheduled ancient monuments’ – the most endangered by modern agriculture and land management. Many have been lost to the plough in the last few decades.
Though modern historians have called them ‘forts’ or ‘camps’, ancient local settlements – primarily from the Iron Age/Celtic era – offer a view of the landscape as the ancient dwellers of this landscape would have seen it; when the land was far less populous than today.
This is a new area, as the ‘Ancient Sites’ guide steps forward into the Medieval over 2022 and 2023, in particular some of the ancient churches and historic hamlets in the area. Though many of these sites and buildings have been radically changed over the centuries, it is still possible to glimpse the world as it existed before land inclosure and industrialisation.
This section contains a miscellanea of features that don’t fit into the general description of ‘ancient sites’. Some may be Roman or Saxon rather than ‘pre-history’ sites; others are more recent sites that are still remarkable features in the landscape.
The emphasis in this guide is that sites should, wherever possible, be walked to. What adds to that sense of their place in the landscape is following the routes that ancient peoples would have taken, as it better conveys their ‘place’ in the landscape today. Irrespective of specific ancient sites, walking local ancient/old trackways, and seeing how they fit into the landscape, gives a greater appreciation of the countryside in this area.