Originally the building was a row of cottages, converted to a public house in 1850.
On display is a deer, which can be seen on top of the thatched roof and also has a fine sundial with the motto SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI (Thus passes the glory of the world).
The village of Wroxton should be called the "sundial capital of Oxfordshire" since it has many more sundials than any other village in the country. On a crossroads just to the west of the village is a very fine sundial with 4 faces pointing north, south, east and west. Underneath are carved stone hands pointing the way to London, Banbury and other places.
There is also a dial on the south wall of Wroxton church, and nearby a small ceramic sundial in the wall of the Old Workshop.
Further along by the duck pond (which has a thatched duck house on a little island in the middle) there is a fine painted dial from 1752 with the initials CSE and the date 1752 on the Old Post Office. A few doors up the street is the Sundial Farmhouse, which has had a dial for hundreds of years; the present one is modern and unfortunately does not tell the right time.
There is one more dial in Wroxton, on a house called Crossways on your left which you can just see from the road as you leave the village towards Banbury.
The Kalabergo Story
John Kalabergo came to England to escape conscription into Napoleon’s Army, which had overrun Lombardy. He settled in Banbury peddling trinkets, jewellery, ornaments and later becoming an expert in making clocks and barometers. He was very popular locally and after forty years was well known all around the district as an honest and reliable tradesman. His nephew-in-law Antonio Bonetti, an attorney, visited him in July 1851 and persuaded John to allow Williams his brother’s son to come to England to help him in his business. John was reluctant to agree.
However feeling his years, he decided to allow William to come, despite that he knew the lad had got into bad company in his native Chiavenna. This was on the understanding that William would be obedient in all matters. William arrived in Banbury at the end of October 1851 and very soon regretted coming to work for his uncle. He was used to pleasing himself, but his uncle was very strict and was always chastising him for being lazy and behaving badly.
Thus William became angry and then bitter, so when his uncle refused to give him the money to go home, he resolved to get rid of him. He purchased a pistol with money he had stolen from his uncle. William carefully planned his dreadful deed and after Christmas, settling out for Priors Marston, he knew that this was the right opportunity. In bad weather and poor light, on Saturday January 10th 1852 late in the afternoon, William crept up behind his uncle who was leading the horse down Williamcote Hull and shot him.
He hurried into Banbury telling the story of how his uncle had been murdered by a gang of men. The Inspector of Police did not believe William and after he had examined his clothes and found traces of gunpowder, he arrested him for the murder.
Banbury Goal which was then in the Market Place, was considered unfit to hold prisoners so the young constables were ordered to take William to the NORTH ARMS at Wroxton. They were told to keep him under close arrest upstairs in one of the attic rooms. On Monday January 12th, William pretended that his wrists were hurting from the handcuffs so the policemen decided it would quite safe to release him for a while. Seizing the opportunity when the two constables were not looking, William opened the attic window to get through.
His guards grabbed in his great coat which ripped apart, allowing him to slide down the thatch to make his escape. The landlord’s wife, Mrs Harris, seeing William drop past the window warned her husband who quickly ran after him as he turned left up the village. Owing to injuring his foot, William could not avoid recapture and his effort to escape across to the woods failed. After a spell in Banbury at Goal, William was taken by train to Oxford prison where he again attempted to escape. After his trial at which he was found guilty of the murder of his uncle he confessed to a priest, he was sentenced to death and was the last person to be publicly hanged at Oxford.
E.R. Lester
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