Botley, Oxfordshire

Botley is a small suburb just west of the Oxford city boundary. It surrounds the junction between the A34 Oxford ring road and the A420 to Swindon, and is a largely residential area with property prices ranging from relatively cheap to very expensive in the direction of Cumnor. It includes a small local shopping centre at Elms Parade, a small commercial shopping estate, the modern Church of England parish church of St Peter and St Paul, and the buildings of Westminster College, now part of Oxford Brookes University. The various large office buildings include a tall building on the main road close to the ring road topped with a small metal spire, known locally as Botley Cathedral.

Botley was first settled in Saxon times, and the name comes from Old English, meaning a woodland clearing of a man called Bota. It falls within the parish of North Hinksey, and so was historically in the county of Berkshire. Because the main road west out of Oxford passes through Botley, the major development which began in the 1930s was centred here rather than in the tiny village of North Hinksey itself, slightly further south. As well as outgrowing its original parent village, Botley has also effectively absorbed the vanished hamlet of Seacourt, commemorated in the name of the Park and Ride car park.

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