page_title: Claydon, Oxfordshire
section_title: Economic and social history
hierarchical_section_title: Claydon, Oxfordshire / Economic and social history
caption_attribution_description: English: Claydon Middle Lock, Oxford Canal This is the middle of a flight of five locks. Each has a fairly small rise of about 6 feet. This boat has two more locks to negotiate (just around the corner) then is at the summit of the Oxford Canal. The locks are 70 feet long by 7 feet wide. They are the typical pattern for the canal, double bottom gates with gate paddles, single top gate with ground paddles.
context_page_description: Claydon is a village in Claydon with Clattercot civil parish, about 6 miles north of Banbury in Oxfordshire. The village is about 417 feet above sea level on a hill of Early Jurassic Middle Lias clay.
  The village is the northernmost settlement in Oxfordshire. The parish is bounded by Warwickshire to the west and Northamptonshire to the east. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 306.
context_section_description: The clockmakers Samuel Knibb (1625–70), Joseph Knibb (1640–1711) and John Knibb (1650–1722) were born at Claydon. Joseph and John were brothers and Samuel was a cousin. Samuel traded in Newport Pagnell from about 1655 to 1663, when he moved to London and went into a partnership making instruments as well as clocks. Joseph traded in Oxford from about 1663, but when Samuel died in 1670 Joseph moved to London and took over his business. John joined Joseph in Oxford in about 1664, took over their Oxford business when Joseph moved to London in 1670 and was Mayor of Oxford in 1697 and 1710. On 26 September 2010 the Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Board unveiled a blue plaque at Claydon to Samuel, Joseph and John Knibb.
  Historic houses in Claydon include Manor Farm built in 1720 and Claydon House. Claydon House is originally believed to be a 15th century tithe barn. It was owned in 1776 by one of the Knibb family. The house was recorded as the "Mill and Plough" in 1781 and was still serving ale until 1820. Later returning to a private residence it was purchased in 1867 by the vicar of Claydon, Rev. George.W. Palmer, to be the vicarage and was given to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in Oxford as a benefaction known as Claydon Vicarage. The property was altered that year by Edwin Dolby, the Victorian architect who altered a number of parish churches and vicarages. Claydon Vicarage was sold, on behalf of the Church Commissioners, in 1958 and it was subsequently renamed Claydon House and returned to being a private house.
  Between 1753 and 1763 Claydon had three public houses. By 1781 this had fallen to two, and from 1841 the number of pubs in the village fluctuated between one and two until the latter part of the 20th century. The New Inn had closed by 1969 and the Sunrising Inn closed in January 1990. The latter is now a private house, but still displays a white and blue enamel plaque of the Hunt Edmunds brewery of Banbury.
  Construction of the Oxford Canal began north of Coventry in 1769. In May 1776 it reached Fenny Compton in Warwickshire, 2 ¹⁄₂ miles (4 km) northwest of Claydon. and by November 1777 the canal had been extended to Cropredy in Oxfordshire, passing through Claydon parish by skirting the north and east sides of the hill on which Claydon stands. On the east side of the hill the canal's engineer Samuel Simcock built Claydon Locks, a flight of five locks that begins the canal's southward descent from its 11-mile long summit pound. Between them the five locks achieve a total rise (i.e. change in water level) of 30 feet 6 inches (9.3 m).
  An open field system of farming prevailed in the parish until 1776 when an Act of Parliament enclosed the common lands of the parish.
  In 1852 the Great Western Railway extended its Oxford and Rugby Railway through the western edge of Claydon parish to a new railway station at Fenny Compton. In 1872–73 the East and West Junction Railway built a line from its Fenny Compton West railway station to Towcester through glebe land in the north of Claydon parish. Claydon's nearest station was 2 ¹⁄₂ miles (4 km) to the south at Cropredy, until British Railways closed it in 1956.
  Claydon and Clattercote School Board was established in 1875 and opened Claydon village school in 1877. The school closed in 1948.
  In 1932 the hamlet of Clattercote, ¹⁄₂ mile (800 m) south of Claydon, was added to the civil parish to form the present parish of Claydon with Clattercote.
  The village was struck by an F0/T1 tornado on 23 November 1981, as part of the record-breaking nationwide tornado outbreak on that day.
caption: On the Oxford Canal: Claydon Middle Lock, built 1776–77
exif: {"Image Make": "Hewlett-Packard", "Image Model": "Photosmart M425", "Image Software": "Version 1.4100,SN:CN633C41XVF", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "136", "EXIF ExposureTime": "329/250000", "EXIF FNumber": "47/10", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:04:27 12:03:55", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:04:27 12:03:55", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "16/5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "239/25", "EXIF ApertureValue": "223/50", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "8871/1000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "297/100", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "D55", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "6", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2576", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1920", "EXIF ExposureIndex": "100", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "36", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "3"}