Chipping Norton - History From The 18th Century Onwards

History From The 18th Century Onwards

In 1796 James and William Hitchman founded Hitchman's Brewery in West Street. In 1849 the business built a larger brewery in Albion Street that included a malthouse and its own water wells. Three generations of Hitchmans ran the brewery, but in 1890 Alfred Hitchman sold the business as a limited company. The new company grew by buying other breweries in 1891 and 1917. In 1924 it merged with Hunt Edmunds of Banbury, and in 1931 Hunt Edmunds Hitchmans closed the brewery in Chipping Norton.

Other industries in the town included a wool mill (see below), a glove-making factory, a tannery and an iron foundry.

Chipping Norton had a workhouse by the 1770s. In 1836 the architect George Wilkinson built a new, larger workhouse. It had four wings radiating from an octagonal central building, similar to Witney workhouse, which also was built by Wilkinson. The architect G. E. Street added a chapel to Chipping Norton workhouse in 1856–57. It ceased to be a workhouse in 1929 and became a hospital in the Second World War. The National Health Service took it over in 1948, making it Cotshill Hospital which later served as a psychiatric hospital. The hospital was closed in 1983. and has since been redeveloped as private residences.

Chipping Norton was one of the boroughs reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835. Its neoclassical town hall was built in 1842.

Holy Trinity Roman Catholic church is also neoclassical. It was built in 1836 by the architect John Adey Repton, a grandson of the English garden designer Humphry Repton.

The Chipping Norton Railway opened in 1855, linking the town with Kingham on the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway. In 1887 a second railway opened, linking Chipping Norton to the Oxford and Rugby Railway at King's Sutton, and the CNR became part of the resulting Banbury and Cheltenham Direct Railway. Extending the railway from Chipping Norton involved digging a tunnel 685 yards (626 m) long under Elmsfield Farm to the west of the town.

In May 1873 rioting took place following the conviction and sentencing of the Ascott Martyrs, sixteen local women accused of trying to interfere with strikebreakers at a farm.

In 1951, British Railways withdrew passenger services between Chipping Norton and Banbury. In 1962 BR closed Chipping Norton railway station and withdrew passenger services between Chipping Norton and Kingham. In 1964 BR closed the B&CDR to freight traffic, and thereafter dismantled the line. The disused railway tunnel is now bricked up at both ends to prevent access, both for people's safety and to protect any bats that may roost inside. (See Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981)

Bliss Mill, on the west side of the town, was built as a tweed mill in 1872. In 1913 to 1914 the millworkers struck for eight months. The mill closed in 1980 and has since been converted into flats. It remains a local landmark, clearly visible from Worcester Road.

The town lost its status as a municipal borough in 1974, when the Local Government Act 1972 made it a successor parish within the district of West Oxfordshire.