At a Bend in the Road

Osney Island lies on the west of Oxford - now part of the city but historically somewhat separate. It is an "island" because it is surrounded by various channels of the river Thames - part of the very complex flow of water through and around the city. From the 12th century until the Tudor dissolution it was home to Oseney Abbey, a major Augustinian priory (the alternate spellings are sometimes used interchangeably but sometimes one or other is preferred, depending on what it is being applied to). Nothing now remains

The Abbey was immensely rich and extremely powerful (thus putting a target on its back for a king in need of a war chest), with large land holdings. These included quite a large proportion of our parish. We have an Osney Close and a D'Oily Close - Robert D'Oily was governor of Oxford and founded the Abbey

No surprise then, that the Abbey owned a mill in our parish - a reliable source of income - and these are the gates of Oseney Mill (Oxford still has its own Osney Mill - in these cases the spelling might matter). The gates are, of course, modern, and their iconography is hardly either Augustinian or Oxfordshire. I can work out a lot of thistles, a herd of red deer, a leaping salmon, a capercaillie, possibly heather? possibly some oats? I'll rely on my Scotland-based friends for the full list, because that is clearly where we are

At the bottom of the left hand gate are the initials TW - because this is the former home of Tom Walkenshaw, an expatriate Scot who was a very successful racing driver (Formulas Ford and Two, plus a wide variety of sports cars) and subsequently a team owner, including some F1 teams. The Benneton HQ was in nearby Enstone and he worked for them for a while, which may be how he came to settle here. He also had major involvement with Rugby Union, and owned the Gloucestrr team at one point. He packed an impressive amount into less than three score and ten

I wonder how he would have felt about an electric bike propped outside his gate. I'm fairly certain he would not have been impressed by the state of the road that I arrived on; I normally bypass this section by using a rough farm track, because it is a less treacherous surface!