page_title: Bletchingdon
section_title: Economic and social history
hierarchical_section_title: Bletchingdon / Economic and social history
caption_attribution_description: English: Terrace of cottages at the corner of Oxford Road, Bletchingdon, Oxfordshire
context_page_description: Bletchingdon is a village and civil parish 2 miles north of Kidlington and 6 miles southwest of Bicester in Oxfordshire, England. Bletchingdon parish includes the hamlet of Enslow just over 1 mile west of the village. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 910.
context_section_description: Bletchingdon village is on a road that in the Middle Ages was the main route linking London and Worcester. The section of that route through Bletchingdon is now classified as the B4027 road.
  An open field system of farming prevailed in the parish until 1622. In the 13th and 14th centuries there were two fields: East Field and West Field. By 1539 it had been reorganised as a more efficient three-field system with the creation of South Field, apparently formed out of Breadcroft and part of East Field. In 1622 Bletchingdon's common lands – about 500 acres (200 ha) of arable land and about 600 acres (240 ha) of heath – were enclosed by agreement between the Lord of the Manor, the Rector and the tenants. This is the earliest recorded instance of enclosure in Oxfordshire by common consent, and it predates by more than a century the first use of an inclosure act in Oxfordshire, which was at Mixbury in 1729–30.
  Bletchingdon village was originally built around a green, but the houses on the north side were demolished when Bletchingdon Park was extended. The earliest known record of a pub in the parish dates from 1616. By the 1670s there was one called the Angel and Crown. In 1703 Bletchingdon had three pubs: the Green Man, the Red Lion and the Swan. The Red Lion survived until 1951, when it lost its licence. The village's last surviving pub was The Blacks Head Inn. It is a 16th-century building that was enlarged in the 17th and 18th centuries.
  In 1788 the Oxford Canal reached Enslow, bringing much cheaper coal from the English Midlands to the area. From 1845 the Oxford and Rugby Railway was built through Enslow, where Bletchington railway station was built. British Railways closed the station in 1964.
caption: Cottages on the corner of Oxford Road, built in 1794 and restored in 1954[5]
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