Tackley History Mysteries No. 11

Angelino’s Corner

Angelino’s (or possibly Angelina’s) Corner, now the site of a water pumping station, is one of the more unusual place names in Tackley — along with Crecy Hill, Bunkers Hill and Gibraltar. So far, there has been no satisfactory explanation of its origin.

One suggestion is that it derives from the name of a keeper of the toll gate, Sansom’s Gate, on the turnpike road from London to Worcester — Angela perhaps. The toll house used to be just opposite the site of the pumping station on the western corner of the Wootton and Woodstock roads. The section of the road between Enslow Bridge and Rollright was taken over by a turnpike trust in 1730. The gate house was demolished not long after 1878 when the trust was disbanded and the road came under public ownership. However, there is no one with a name remotely similar to Angelino associated with the toll gate; and none of the census returns for 1841 to 1881 list any likely names.

Another possible origin has come to light while I have been searching among local field names for evidence of Neolithic long barrows in and around Tackley. Medieval field and place names that end in hlaw, laue, lawe, law, low or lowe indicate the presence of a burial mound. Cutteslowe, for example, means the long barrow of Cutha, a leader of the West Saxons who died in 584.

We know that there were three long barrows on either side of the Banbury Road less than a kilometre from the pumping station. The boundary between the parishes of Tackley and Shipton-on-Cherwell lies 200m to the south of the toll gate, and four of the old names of Shipton fields in this area indicate the presence of barrows: Brokenlowe, Coppedelowe, Littlelowe and Angelowe. It is not impossible to imagine that Angelino’s is a corruption of Angelowe. A mystery solved?

Research and text: John Perkins