Just outside Banbury is the chocolate-box village of Wroxton, with a thatched pub, duck pond, and it’s very own Abbey, a 17th century Jacobean mansion, built on the site of a 13th century monastery. It’s lovely, and would make a great aerial photo, but it’s now the English campus of the American Fairleigh Dickinson College, so it seemed prudent to not do so.
Anyway, in the grounds are three “Treasures”. First off is my monument - a 50’ high obelisk commissioned in 1739 to commemorate the visit to Wroxton and the Banbury races by the Prince of Wales, Frederick of Hanover. Interestingly (and it’s amazing what you learn about your local area), whilst researching “monument” around Banburyshire, I discovered there’s a huge one just off Jct 11 of the M40 - Filling Station No 9 was a WW1 shell factory. It’s not just mounds in the earth, and hardly interesting, so I ignored it!
A fair bit beyond the obelisk is my No. 12 Something over 100 years old. The Drayton Arch - for a folly, it’s a fair trek beyond the abbey, but I guess those Jacobean’s liked a walk about the place. Scarily (and deliberately in shot), Banbury is rapidly encroaching - but then Banbury and especially Bicester are rapidly encroaching most of North Oxfordshire at the moment.
Now, Rich said:
so the third Treasure relating to the Abbey is this - sometimes known as Wroxton Castle. It’s actually a Dovecote, built by Sanderson Miller in 1745 - he had a bit of a thing about castle-type follies (the sham castles at Hagley Hall and Wimpole Hall are his). But, if you were a dove, wouldn’t you want to be king of this castle?
