These are mainly those dependent on agri culture. Blankets are manufactured at Witney, and tweed, girths and horsecloths at Chipping Norton. There are paper mills at Shiplake, Sandford-on-Thames, Wolvercot and Eynsham, using the pure water of the streams. Agricultural implements and port able engines are made at Banbury, and glove and lace-making are ancient industries. Banbury has been long celebrated for the manufacture of a peculiar cake.
Many of the roads are ancient routes on the plateau or following the strike of the rocks, but the main railways are markedly transverse, linking London with the indus trial north-west. The county is served entirely by the G.W. Rail way (except for a branch of the L.M.S. Railway from Bicester to Oxford). One main line from London passes through the Read ing gap to Oxford, and here bifurcating, sends one line north along the Cherwell valley to Banbury and another across the north west of the county, via the Evenlode valley, to link up with the Severn valley, Worcester and Birmingham ; Kingham on the borders of Gloucestershire, being a junction for a line west to Cheltenham (Glouc.) and a line north-east to King's Sutton (Northants). In order to compete with fast trains from London to Birmingham on the L.M.S. Railway the G.W. Railway has built a loop line across the north-east of the county, leaving Oxford to the west and linking Banbury with the joint L.N.E. Railway and G.W. Railway line passing through the Princes Risborough (Bucks.) gap (from which point also a line runs along the Thames valley to Oxford). There are other branch lines.
The area of the ancient county is 483,626 acres. The area of the administrative county, including the city and county borough of Oxford, is 479,220 ac.
with a population in T 93 1 of 209,599. The municipal boroughs are Banbury, Chipping Norton, Henley-on-Thames, Oxford, a city and the county town, and Woodstock. The county is in the Oxford circuit and assizes are held at Oxford. It has one court of quarter sessions, and is divided into II petty sessional divisions. The borough of Banbury and the city of Oxford have separate courts of quarter sessions and commissions of the peace, and the borough of Henley-on-Thames has a separate commission of the peace. The total number of civil parishes is 304. Oxfordshire is in the diocese of Oxford, and contains 244 ecclesiastical parishes or dis tricts, wholly or in part. The ancient county (which in 1289 sent two members to parliament) is divided (since 1918) into two parliamentary divisions, Banbury and Henley, each returning one member. It also includes part of the parliamentary borough of Oxford, returning one member, in addition to which the university of Oxford returns two members.
Natural History of Oxfordshire (Oxford, 1677, 2nd ed. 1705) ; Shelton, Engraved Illustrations of the principal Antiqui ties of Oxfordshire, from drawings by T. Mackenzie (Oxford, 1823) ; Sir T. Phillips, Oxfordshire Pedigrees (Evesham, 1825) ; J. M. Daven port, Lords Lieutenant and High Sheriffs of Oxford 16.86 (Oxford, 1868), and Oxfordshire Annals (Oxford, 1869) ; J. Phillips, The Geology of Oxford and the Valley of the Thames (1871) ; Victoria County History, vol. i. and ii. (1907) ; H. A. Evans, Highways and Byways in Oxford and the Cotswolds (1923) J. J. Walker, The Natural History of the Oxford District (1926).