Amenities
Despite lacking a railway station, and despite its relative distance from the M4 and M40, Benson is today a thriving commuter village, with a Church of England primary school (separate primary and junior schools recently combined, allowing one to be sold off for housing development), a pre-school, a doctor's surgery, two public houses including 18th century coaching inn The Crown Inn and The Three Horseshoes (down from five since 1990 - the closed ones having become private homes) and about a dozen small shops, including a supermarket and a dispensing chemist. A large garage on the main Oxford road just outside the village has an on-site McDonald's (with drive through) and a Marks and Spencer food outlet, though the Vauxhall main dealership has now closed.
The brook still runs through the village, and is home to trout and to the invasive American signal crayfish.
Aircraft noise in the area can be significant, so property values are low compared to many of the surrounding villages.
The village is also a well-known frost-pocket, sometimes recording the lowest night-time temperatures in the UK. This minor climatic quirk may have led to the village's part in the development of modern meteorology, with an important meteorological observatory being located in the village in the early 19th century.
Read more about this topic: Benson, Oxfordshire