Oxford City HER

The Oxford Historic Environment Record (encompassing the Urban Archaeological Database) is the definitive source of information on the historic environment in the Oxford City Council Local Authority Area. This resource, which is accessible to the public, contains more than 2,000 records on archaeological sites, buildings, and find spots of archaeological or historic significance. The city area encompasses an extensive landscape of late Neolithic-Early Bronze Age funerary and ritual monuments, later prehistoric and Roman rural landscapes and an extensive area of Roman pottery manufacturing compounds. The hinterland around Oxford contains a number of historic villages and a wide range of distinctive monuments including The Leper Hospital of St Bartlemas, The Benedictine Nunneries at Littlemore and Gostow and the Templar Preceptory at Cowley. Oxford has its origins in the middle Saxon period with a defended burh emerging by the early 10th century. The significance of the Norman town as successful economic centre was later eclipsed by the emerging University as the cloth trade declined, with the formation of college quads and gardens over earlier medieval tenements. During the English Civil War the town became the temporary capital for Charles I and was enclosed within an extensive system of earthwork defences and siege works. The walled city and its suburbs constitute an exceptional above and below ground archaeological resource. The Oxford Historic Environment Record also maintains a library of unpublished site reports which can be consulted in person by prior appointment.