The Rollright Stones, a stone circle 2.5 miles (4 km) north of Chipping Norton, reflect prehistoric habitation in the area. The town name means "market north town", with "Chipping" (from Old Englishcēping) meaning "market". Chipping Norton began as a small settlement beneath a hill, where the earthworks of the motte-and-bailey Chipping Norton Castle can still be seen. The Church of England parish church dedicated to St Mary the Virgin stands on the hill next to the castle. Parts of today's building may date from the 12th century.[3] It retains features of the 13th and 14th centuries.[4] The nave was largely rebuilt in about 1485 with a Perpendicular Gothicclerestory.[5] It is believed to have been funded by John Ashfield, a wool merchant, making St Mary's an example of a "wool church".[5]
In July 1549 the Vicar of Chipping Norton, Henry Joyes or Joyce, led parishioners in a popular rising after the suppression of chantries and other religious reforms left him to minister alone to a congregation of 800 and reduced the budget for schooling.[6] The rising was brutally put down by Lord Grey de Wilton. Joyes was captured, then hanged in chains from the tower of his church.[7] The bell tower rebuilt in 1825[3][8] has a ring of eight bells,[9] all cast in 1907 by Mears and Stainbank of Whitechapel Bell Foundry. It also has a Sanctus bell cast in 1624 by Roger I Purdue of Bristol.[9][10]
Wool in the Middle Ages made the Cotswolds one of England's wealthiest parts and many of the medieval buildings survive in the centre of Chipping Norton. There is still a market every Wednesday and a mop fair in September, when the High Street is closed to through traffic. In 1205 a new market place was laid out higher up the hill. Sheep farming was largely displaced by arable, but agriculture remained important. Many original houses round the market place received fashionable Georgian façades in the 18th century. An inscription on the almshouses records them as founded in 1640 as "The work and gift of Henry Cornish, gent".[11]
Chipping Norton Almshouses, founded in 1640
Post-1800
In 1796 James and William Hitchman founded Hitchman's Brewery in West Street. The business moved in 1849 to a larger brewery in Albion Street that included a malthouse and its own water wells. Three generations of Hitchmans ran this, but in 1890 Alfred Hitchman sold it as a limited company that acquired other breweries in 1891 and 1917. In 1924 it merged with Hunt Edmunds of Banbury and in 1931 the brewery here was closed.[12] Other local industries included a woollen mill (see below), a glove-maker, a tannery and an iron foundry.
Chipping Norton had a workhouse by the 1770s. In 1836 the architect George Wilkinson built a larger one with four wings round an octagonal central building, similar to one he was building at Witney. The architect G. E. Street added a chapel to Chipping Norton workhouse in 1856–1857. The building became a hospital in the Second World War. It was taken over by the National Health Service in 1948 as Cotshill Hospital, later became a psychiatric hospital, and was closed in 1983.[13] It has been redeveloped as private residences.
The town's theatre, The Theatre Chipping Norton, began life as a Salvation Army Citadel, its first stones, now visible in the auditorium, being laid in 1888.[18] It continued as a furniture warehouse before being spotted by two Royal Shakespeare Company actors, Tamara and John Malcolm, in 1968. In 1973, fundraising for the new theatre began in earnest, and a pantomime, Beauty and the Beast was staged in the town hall. The Theatre was opened in 1975 by Tom Baker (who played the title character, the Doctor, in the BBC science-fiction TV show Doctor Who), beginning with a light programme including films and lunchtime jazz. The adjoining cottage was bought and converted into the bar and gallery. In 1990 a building bought in Goddards Lane now serves as green room, offices and rehearsal room.[19]
In 2023, a cinema opened in the town. The Living Room Cinema has two screens as well as a bar.
The town acts as a retail and leisure centre, with three supermarkets and numerous shops, including branches of national chain stores. It has six pubs, two hotels with public bars, and three schools. Holy Trinity Roman Catholic School[24] and St Mary's Church of England School[25] are primary schools. Chipping Norton School[26] is the town's secondary school with a sixth form.
Chipping Norton Golf Club, now the Cotswold Club and part of Cotswold Hotel and Spa, is the oldest in Oxfordshire. It began in 1890 on Chipping Norton Common.[27]
The first XV of Chipping Norton Rugby Union Football Club[28] plays in the Southern Counties North League. It was league champion in 2007/08.
Chipping Norton has a purpose-built veterinary hospital, serving the community and the local zoos. The hospital's building was opened in July 2015 by then prime minister David Cameron.[29] The previous premises were on Albion Street,[30] where the practice had been based since it was founded in the 1970s.[31] The hospital has a boarding cattery, a CT Scanner, and hosts one of only 15 radioiodine treatment units for hyperthyroid cats in the UK.[32][33]
From 1989, the veterinary hospital had a partnership with the remote island of St Helena, using funding provided by the DfID for vets to visit the island.[34] Since 2010, the island has had its own permanent vet[35] and the connection has since been lost.
Chipping Norton Town ("The Magpies" or "Chippy") was founded in 1893 and plays at Walterbush Road. It resigned from the Hellenic Football League in favour of the Witney & District Football League.[36]
Chipping Norton Town Cricket Club plays in Oxfordshire Cricket Association Division 6. The town also has a bowls club.[37]
The nave of St Mary’s Church in Chipping Norton, built circa 1485, is described by Pevsner as being one of the finest interiors in the county. The chancel and aisles are earlier, and contain 13th- and 14th-century work. The west tower was rebuilt in 1825. At the east end of the south aisle is a large Decorated window which is thought to have been brought from the demolished Bruern Abbey in Oxfordshire. There is a fourteenth-century octagonal font and a two-storeyed fifteenth-century vestry. There are some damaged alabastertomb effigies, and some monumental brasses are now displayed on wooden panels.
Chipping Norton Castle was a timber Normanmotte-and-bailey castle to the north-west of the town. Little of the original structures remains apart from earthworks. The remains have been a Scheduled Monument since 1949.[41]
The town is served by these local newspapers: The Oxford Times and the Banbury Guardian. There is also a longstanding community newspaper, The Chipping Norton News, which is staffed by a volunteer team and published monthly.
Michael Baldwin (born 1945), British conceptual artist, author and founding member of the Art & Language artist group, was born and lived in the town[53]
^John Dee: Interdisciplinary Studies in English Renaissance Thought (International Archives of the History of Ideas), Stephen Clucas (Editor), 2006, chapter 13 by Susan Bassnett: "Edward Kelley's Family in the Writings of John Dee", p. 288
^"Andrew Wigmore". 2014 Commonwealth Games. Retrieved 29 August 2019.
^"Oxford". Oxford Journal. 19 December 1829. p. 3.