Witney is a market town on the

River Windrush The River Windrush is a tributary of the River Thames in central England. It rises near Winchcombe in Gloucestershire and flows south east for via Burford and Witney to meet the Thames at Newbridge in Oxfordshire. The river gives its name to t ...

in West Oxfordshire in the county of

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primaril ...

, England. It is west of

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

. The

place-name Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of ''toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...

"Witney" is derived from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...

for "Witta's island". The earliest known record of it is as ''Wyttannige'' in a Saxon charter of 969. The

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

of 1086 records it as ''Witenie''.

Notable buildings

The

Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ca ...

of St Mary the Virgin was originally Norman. The north porch and north

aisle An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, certain types of buildings, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, pa ...

were added in this style late in the 12th century, and survived a major rebuilding in about 1243. In this rebuilding the present

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. ...

, transepts,

tower A tower is a tall structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting structures. Towers are specific ...

and

spire A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires a ...

were added and the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-typ ...

was remodelled, all in the Early English style. In the 14th century a number of side chapels and some of the present windows were added in the Decorated style. In the 15th century the south transept was extended and the present west window of the nave were added in the

Perpendicular In elementary geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at a right angle (90 degrees or π/2 radians). The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the '' perpendicular symbol'', ⟂. It c ...

style. The tower has a peal of eight bells. The tower of the church is 69 feet (21 metres) high, topped by a tall and slender spire, which brings the total height of the church to 154 feet (47 metres). Holy Trinity Church, Wood Green, was built in 1849 in a Gothic Revival rendition of

Early English Gothic English Gothic is an architectural style that flourished from the late 12th until the mid-17th century. The style was most prominently used in the construction of cathedrals and churches. Gothic architecture's defining features are pointed ar ...

. St Mary the Virgin and Holy Trinity are now members of a single team parish. The Friends Meeting House in Wood Green was built in the 18th century. Since 1997

Quakers Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abili ...

in Witney have met at the corn exchange. The

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

church in the High Street was built in 1850. It is now one of five Methodist churches and chapels in Witney. The Roman Catholic parish of Our Lady and Saint Hugh was founded in 1913. It originally used a chapel in West End built in 1881 but now has its own modern building. The old chapel in West End is now Elim Christian Fellowship. Witney High Street still has several older buildings, which are protected by the Witney and Cogges conservation area. Witney Market began in the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

. Thursday is the traditional market day but there is also a market on Saturday. The

buttercross A buttercross, also known as butter cross or butter market, is a type of market cross associated with English market towns and dating from medieval times. Its name originates from the fact that they were located at the market place, where peop ...

in the

market square The market square (or sometimes, the market place) is a square meant for trading, in which a market is held. It is an important feature of many towns and cities around the world.Witney Town Hall, which is arcaded on the ground floor and has an assembly room on the first floor, was completed in 1786. Witney has long been an important crossing over the

. The architect Thomas Wyatt rebuilt the bridge in Bridge Street in 1822. Witney

Workhouse In Britain, a workhouse () was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. (In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses.) The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse' ...

was on Razor Hill (now Tower Hill). It was designed by the architect George Wilkinson and built in 1835–36. It had four wings radiating from an

octagonal In geometry, an octagon (from the Greek ὀκτάγωνον ''oktágōnon'', "eight angles") is an eight-sided polygon or 8-gon. A '' regular octagon'' has Schläfli symbol and can also be constructed as a quasiregular truncated square, t ...

central building, similar to

Chipping Norton Chipping Norton is a market town and civil parish in the Cotswold Hills in the West Oxfordshire district of Oxfordshire, England, about south-west of Banbury and north-west of Oxford. The 2011 Census recorded the civil parish population ...

workhouse, which also was built by Wilkinson. His younger brother William Wilkinson added a separate chapel to Witney Workhouse in 1860. In the First World War the workhouse held

prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of w ...

. In 1940 the workhouse was converted into Crawford Collets engineering factory under the direction of Leonard Frank Eve. The chapel was made the factory canteen. In 1979 Crawford Collets had the main buildings demolished and replaced with a modern factory, but preserved the entrance gate and former chapel. In 2004 the modern factory was demolished for redevelopment. The gate and chapel have again been preserved and the former chapel converted into offices.

Industry

Witney has been famous for its woollen blankets since the Middle Ages. The water for the production of these blankets is drawn from the

, which was believed to be the secret of Witney's high-quality blankets. Mops were also traditionally made by the blanket manufacturers; at one time every ship in the Royal Navy had Witney mops aboard. The Blanket Hall in High Street was built in 1721 for weighing and measuring blankets. At one time there were five blanket factories in the town but with the closure of the largest blanket maker Early's, in 2002, the town's blanket industry completely ceased production. Early's factory, once a vital and important part of the town's history, has now been demolished, and is the site of several new housing estates. Early's blanket factory, including shots of working machinery, may be seen in the 1960

Norman Wisdom Sir Norman Joseph Wisdom, (4 February 1915 – 4 October 2010) was an English actor, comedian, musician and singer best known for a series of comedy films produced between 1953 and 1966 featuring a hapless onscreen character often called Norman ...

film '' There Was a Crooked Man''. One of the oldest mill sites in the town, New Mill, where there has been a mill since the

, now houses the head office of Audley Travel. For many years Witney had its own brewery and maltings: J.W. Clinch and Co, which founded the Eagle Maltings in 1841. Courage took over Clinch's and closed it down, but since 1983 Refresh UK's Wychwood Brewery has brewed real ales in the Eagle Maltings. In 2002 Refresh UK contracted to produce ales for W.H. Brakspear, who had sold their former brewery in

Henley-upon-Thames Henley-on-Thames ( ) is a town and civil parish on the River Thames in Oxfordshire, England, northeast of Reading, west of Maidenhead, southeast of Oxford and west of London (by road), near the tripoint of Oxfordshire, Berkshire and ...

for redevelopment. Refresh UK also brews

ale Ale is a type of beer brewed using a warm fermentation method, resulting in a sweet, full-bodied and fruity taste. Historically, the term referred to a drink brewed without hops. As with most beers, ale typically has a bittering agent to bala ...

for the Prince of Wales'

Duchy Originals Waitrose Duchy Organic (formerly Duchy Originals from Waitrose and earlier simply Duchy Originals) is a brand of organic food sold in Waitrose stores in the United Kingdom. The brand is a partnership between Waitrose and Duchy Originals Limited, ...

company.

Railways

The Witney Railway opened Witney's first station in 1861, linking the town to where the line joined the Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway. In 1873 the East Gloucestershire Railway opened from a new station, linking Witney with and . The Great Western Railway operated services on both lines and eventually took them over. In 1962

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four (British ra ...

ways closed the EGR completely and withdrew passenger services from the Witney Railway. In 1970 British Railways closed the Witney Railway completely and it was dismantled.

Reopening proposal

In 2015 Witney Oxford Transport Group (WOT) proposed the reopening of the railway, with a station at Witney, as an alternative to improvements to the

A40 road A4 most often refers to: *A4 paper, a paper size defined by the ISO 216 standard, measuring 210 × 297 mm A4 and variants may also refer to: Science and mathematics * British NVC community A4 (''Hydrocharis morsus-ranae - Stratiotes aloide ...

proposed by

Oxfordshire County Council Oxfordshire County Council is the county council (upper-tier local authority) for the non-metropolitan county of Oxfordshire in the South East of England. It is an elected body responsible for some local government services in the county, incl ...

. In 2016 WOT and West Oxfordshire Green Party cited chronic traffic congestion on roads linking Witney with Oxford as a reason to reopen the railway. In 2021 WOT Group submitted a bid to the Department for Transport's 'Restoring Your Railway' Ideas Fund for a grant to develop the case for a new railway in the A40 corridor 'Building a better-connected West Oxfordshire, transforming the wider Oxford economic region' as part of an Oxford Metro advocated by Railfuture. Witney2 1 62571r

Museums

Witney has four museums. Cogges Manor Farm Museum, in the 13th-century manor house and farm of Cogges, represents farming and countryside history. Witney and District Museum has many artefacts and documents representing the history of the town. Witney Blanket Hall, built in the 18th century, showcases both the history of the Hall and of Witney's blanket industry and has Witney blankets for sale. The Wychwood Brewery has a museum open at weekends.

Education

Witney has three county secondary schools:

Henry Box School The Henry Box School is a secondary school with academy status located in Witney in Oxfordshire, England. The school has a catchment area of the town of Witney and many surrounding villages such as Ducklington and Aston. It has approximately 1 ...

, Wood Green School and Springfield School. In 1660 Henry Box founded Witney

Grammar School A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching Latin, but more recently an academically oriented secondary school ...

. In 1968 it became the comprehensive Henry Box School. In 1970 new school buildings were added to the original 17th-century premises beside Church Green. Wood Green School was founded in 1954 and is at the top of Woodstock Road. Springfield School was founded in 1967 and is a special-needs school for pupils with severe learning difficulties. Springfield School senior section is a self-contained unit, with some shared facilities, within the grounds of Wood Green School. Wood Green was substantially expanded from 2000 to 2004; an additional block with 15 teaching rooms was added, together with a purpose-built

sixth form In the education systems of England, Northern Ireland, Wales, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and some other Commonwealth countries, sixth form represents the final two years of secondary education, ages 16 to 18. Pupils typically prepare for ...

centre, school restaurant and new

AstroTurf AstroTurf is an American subsidiary of SportGroup that produces artificial turf for playing surfaces in sports. The original AstroTurf product was a short-pile synthetic turf invented in 1965 by Monsanto. Since the early 2000s, AstroTurf has ...

pitch. 2009 saw part of the old Lower School being remodelled to provide new changing and shower facilities for the AstroTurf pitch and its many users from local community sports clubs. The King's School is independent of Oxfordshire Local Education Authority. It was founded by Oxfordshire Community Churches, an

evangelical Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual expe ...

Christian organisation, in 1984.

Cokethorpe School Cokethorpe School is an independent day school in Hardwick, West Oxfordshire, about south of Witney. It was founded in 1957 by Francis Brown. It is a member of HMC, IAPS, and The Society of Heads (formerly known as SHMIS). The school has a ...

is an independent secondary school, founded in 1957. St. Mary's School beside Church Green was established in 1813. It was a

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Brit ...

primary school but in 1953 it became a Church of England controlled School for Infant children, and the Junior children transferred to the Batt School premises. Witney now has two Church of England primary schools: The Batt School in Corn Street and The Blake School in Cogges Hill Road. Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Primary School is a Roman Catholic school founded in 1958. Witney has five community primary schools: Madley Park Community Primary School, Queen's Dyke Primary School, Tower Hill Community Primary School, West Witney Primary School and Witney Community Primary School. It also has one SEN primary school, Springfield School, which is part of the same school as Springfield secondary School. Springfield school (Primary) shares a building with Madley Brook Primary, but aside from sharing a building, some resources and integration, the schools run independently of one another. The former Witney Technical College is now part of

Abingdon and Witney College Abingdon & Witney College is a further education provider established in April 2001 after the merger of Abingdon College and West Oxfordshire College. It has four campuses: Abingdon, Witney, Common Leys Farm and a new Construction Skills Centre ...

. A complete rebuilding of its premises began in September 2008.

Sports

Witney United Football Club, formerly known as Witney Town and nicknamed the Blanketmen, played in the Hellenic League Premier Division, until they dissolved in the 2012–2013 season. Witney and District League is a local association football league with about 32 clubs in five divisions. Witney Rugby Football Club first XV plays in the

RFU The Rugby Football Union (RFU) is the national governing body for rugby union in England. It was founded in 1871, and was the sport's international governing body prior to the formation of what is now known as World Rugby (WR) in 1886. It prom ...

South West 1 East. Wychwood Ladies Hockey Club's first team play in the Trysport Hockey League Division 1; Witney Hockey Club men's first XI plays in the

England Hockey England Hockey is the national governing body for the sport of field hockey in England. There are separate governing bodies for the sport in the other parts of the United Kingdom. History and organisation England Hockey was formed on 1 January ...

Men's Conference East division and its ladies' first XI plays in South Clubs' Women's Hockey League Division 3A. Witney Swifts Cricket Club first XI plays in Oxfordshire Cricket Association Division Three. Witney Houstons Basketball Club plays in the Oxford and Chiltern League. The Toleman Group Motorsport racing team was once based in Witney until it was rebranded Benetton Formula in 1986. The team itself stayed in Witney until 1992 when they moved to Enstone eventually being rebranded in 2002 as Renault F1 when the team was purchased by the French

Renault Groupe Renault ( , , , also known as the Renault Group in English; legally Renault S.A.) is a French multinational automobile manufacturer established in 1899. The company produces a range of cars and vans, and in the past has manufactured ...

car company. The team competed as Renault F1 until 2011, when it was again rebranded this time under the "Lotus Renault GP" name after forging a partnership with the British Lotus Cars company. The subsequent year the team became Lotus F1 after they dropped the Renault name. The team was later re-purchased by Renault in late 2015 to become the Renault Sport F1 Team for 2016.

Politics

Witney was, until recently, a

safe seat A safe seat is an electoral district (constituency) in a legislative body (e.g. Congress, Parliament, City Council) which is regarded as fully secure, for either a certain political party, or the incumbent representative personally or a combina ...

for the

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

. Former Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd and former leader of the Conservatives and Prime Minister David Cameron were both MPs for Witney. In the 1997 General Election, Shaun Woodward stood and won the seat as a Conservative, after Hurd retired. Woodward switched to the Labour Party in 1999. In the 2001 General Election Woodward stood as the Labour candidate in the St Helens South constituency, and David Cameron retook Witney for the Conservatives. He became Prime Minister in coalition with the Liberal Democrats in May 2010 and continued after the 2015 election, in which the Conservative Party gained a majority, but retired to the backbenches after the referendum that rejected his government's recommendation to remain in the European Union. He stood down as an MP soon afterwards, triggering a

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election ( Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to ...

held on 20 October 2016, in which

Robert Courts Robert Alexander Courts (born 21 October 1978) is a British politician and barrister who served as the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport from 2020 to 2022. A member of the Conservative Party, he has been Member of Parliame ...

was elected for the Conservatives. Courts was re-elected in 2017. For elections to

Witney is covered by the electoral wards of 'Witney North and East' and 'Witney South and Central'. The west of the town is included in the ward of 'Witney West and Bampton' which includes villages of Bampton and Ducklington. The wards were created in 2013, with the new Witney South and Central won by the Labour Party and the other two wards won by the Conservatives. At the 2021 Oxfordshire County Council election Labour held Witney South and Central and gained Witney North and East from the Conservatives. For elections to

West Oxfordshire District Council West Oxfordshire is a local government district in northwest Oxfordshire, England, including towns such as Woodstock, Burford, Chipping Norton, Charlbury, Carterton and Witney, where the council is based. Area The area is mainly rural downlan ...

Witney is divided into the wards of Witney Central, Witney East, Witney North, Witney South and Witney West electing a total of 12 district councillors. As of 2022 the majority of the town of Witney's councillors on the council represented the Labour Party and the mayor was Labour's Liz Duncan.

Twinning

Witney is twinned with Unterhaching, Germany and Le Touquet, France

Witney is twinned with: * Unterhaching, Germany * Le Touquet, France

Floods

In July 2007 Witney saw its worst flooding in more than 50 years. Homes and businesses were evacuated and Bridge Street, a major road into the town and the only road across the

Windrush Windrush may refer to: Places in England * Windrush Square, precinct in south London * River Windrush, a river in Gloucestershire * Windrush, Gloucestershire, a village in Gloucestershire ** RAF Windrush, a Royal Air Force station in World War I ...

, was closed. About 200 properties in central Witney were flooded, with areas around Bridge Street, Mill Street and West End the worst affected. The new and incomplete housing development Aquarius also suffered substantial flooding. In 2008 further flooding contributed to the death of a 17-year-old boy who drowned in a culvert.

Climate

Witney has a maritime climate type typical to the British Isles, with evenly spread rainfall, a narrow temperature range, and comparatively low sunshine totals. The nearest official weather station is Brize Norton, about southwest of Witney. The absolute maximum recorded was 35.4c(95.7f) in August 1990, although in a typical year the warmest day should only reach 29.5c(85.1f) with an average of 14.6 days reporting a maximum temperature of 25.1c(77.2f) or above. The absolute minimum is −20.7c(−5.3f), recorded in January 1982. In a more typical year the annual minimum temperature should be −8.1c(17.4f), although a total of 47.1 nights should report an air frost. Rainfall averages slightly under 644mm per year with more than 1mm of rain falling on just under 115 days of the year.

Media

In May 2010, WitneyTV was launched as a non-profit online broadcaster with a weekly show that features local news and upcoming events within West Oxfordshire for the benefit of the community. An archive of videos featuring local attractions, clubs, organisations and previous shows is also available. On 30 November 2012 Witney Radio was launched. Providing hyper-local news, music and current affairs to the people of Witney and West Oxfordshire. A licence to broadcast on FM radio was granted in April 2016 by the licensing authority

OFCOM The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-ranging powers acros ...

. On 14 July 2017 Witney Radio began to broadcast on 99.9fm to Witney and West Oxfordshire. The station broadcasts 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with over 30 presenters from the local area. The station also broadcasts online for listeners online via TuneIn.

Notable people

Notable people associated with Witney include: * David Cameron, former MP for Witney in

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

, and former

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister advises the sovereign on the exercise of much of the royal prerogative, chairs the Cabinet and selects its ministers. As modern p ...

and Conservative Leader *

Jamie Cook (footballer) James Steven Cook (born 2 August 1979) is an English footballer. Career Cook started his career with his hometown club Oxford United, where he played 77 times in the Football League, scoring seven goals. He then joined Boston United in Februar ...

* Alan Dapre, children's TV show writer *

Lawson D'Ath Lawson Marc D'Ath (born 24 December 1992) is an English professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for club Banbury United. Career Reading Born in Witney, Oxfordshire, D'Ath was named in the Reading matchday squad for the first time on ...

, footballer,

Yeovil Town F.C. Yeovil Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in the town of Yeovil, Somerset, England. The team competes in the , the fifth tier of the English football league system. The club's home ground is Huish Park, built i ...

lived in Witney and attended Henry Box School * Jorge Grant, footballer, Lincoln City, attended Wood Green School. * Darrell Griffin,

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

footballer * Douglas Hurd, former Conservative MP for Witney *

Charlie Hutchison Charles William Duncan Hutchison (1918–1993) was a British-Ghanaian anti-fascist, soldier, and ambulance driver most famous for being the only Black-British member of the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. In Spain he was one ...

, British communist, only black British volunteer to join the

International Brigades The International Brigades ( es, Brigadas Internacionales) were military units set up by the Communist International to assist the Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. The organization existed ...

, and liberator of Belsen concentration camp, born in Witney. * Martin Jones, concert pianist * Simon King, Former Gillingham and

Oxford United Oxford United Football Club is a professional football club in the city of Oxford, England. The team plays in League One, the third tier of the English football league system. The chairman is Grant Ferguson, the manager is Karl Robinson and th ...

footballer, grew up in Witney and attended Henry Box School. *Daniel Leach,

Select Group The Select Group is a panel of English professional football referees and assistant referees, appointed by Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL). Select Group 1 In August 2022, the PGMOL announced the referees and assistant referees ...

2 Assistant Referee *

Graham Leonard Graham Douglas Leonard (8 May 1921 – 6 January 2010) was an English Roman Catholic priest and former Anglican bishop. His principal ministry was as a bishop of the Church of England but, after his retirement as the Bishop of London, he be ...

, 130th

Bishop of London A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

, subsequently Prelate of Honour *

Robert Llewellyn Robert Llewellyn (born 10 March 1956) is a British actor, comedian, presenter and writer. He plays the mechanoid Kryten in the sci-fi television sitcom '' Red Dwarf'' and formerly presented the engineering gameshow '' Scrapheap Challenge'' ...

, '' Red Dwarf'' actor and author, attended Henry Box School and was expelled * Andrew Logan, artist, born in Witney * Gugu Mbatha-Raw, TV and film actress, grew up in the town and attended Henry Box School * Maddie Moate, television presenter and YouTuber, attended Henry Box School and grew up in nearly Curbridge * David Moss, footballer, Luton Town, previously Swindon Town and Witney Town * Robbie Mustoe, footballer, notably with

Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ) is a town on the southern bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, England. It is near the North York Moors national park. It is the namesake and main town of its local borough council area. Until the early 1800s, the ...

Miss Read Dora Jessie Saint MBE (17 April 1913 – 7 April 2012), née Shafe, best known by the pen name Miss Read, was an English novelist and, by profession, a schoolmistress. Her pseudonym was derived from her mother's maiden name. She is best know ...

(Dora Saint), author, lived in Witney. The town was the inspiration for the fictional "Lulling" of the ''Thrush Green'' novels. * Larry Sanders, Green party councillor and brother of US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders * William Smith, cricketer *

James Allen Shuffrey James Allen Shuffrey (1858–1939) was a British Victorian and Edwardian watercolour artist particularly associated with Oxford and Oxfordshire. Early life and family James Allen Shuffrey was born in 1859 in Wood Green, Witney, Oxfordshire, ...

, notable watercolour artist, was born in Wood Green, Witney in 1858. *

Leonard Shuffrey Leonard Shuffrey (1852–1926) was a British architect and architectural designer of the late Victorian and Edwardian period. He was a leading figure of the aesthetic movement that had a significant impact on the development of buildings and ...

, leading architect and architectural designer was born in Wood Green, Witney, in 1852. *

Patrick Steptoe Patrick Christopher Steptoe CBE FRS (9 June 1913 – 21 March 1988) was an English obstetrician and gynaecologist and a pioneer of fertility treatment. Steptoe was responsible with biologist and physiologist Robert Edwards and the nurse Je ...

, pioneer of fertility treatment, attended

* Shaun Woodward, Conservative and then Labour MP for Witney, then Labour MP for St Helens South from 2001 to 2015.

References

Sources and further reading

* * * * *

External links

British History Online Witney entryOfficial Witney Town Council websiteWitney website
– Witney website
This is Witney website
*
Witney Blanket StoryWitney TVWitney RadioWitney & District FootballWitney United Football ClubWitney Rugby Football ClubThe Book Of Witney
– by Charles and Joan Gott
Witney & District Historical and Archaeological Society
– Talks, articles and photo galleries relating to Witney and local area.
Archival material relating to Witney
listed at the UK National Archives {{authority control Civil parishes in Oxfordshire Market towns in Oxfordshire West Oxfordshire District