Grimsbury is a largely residential area which forms the eastern part of Banbury, in the Cherwell district, in the county of, Oxfordshire, England.
's ground, and the town's Royal Mail sorting offices, which were built on the site of the former Banbury Merton Street railway station.
[1] The placename appears to be a corruption of the Saxon name for a defended enclosure (burh) of a person called Grim, although it may be noted that old maps of the area record the name as 'Grimsby', a form still used by older inhabitants of the locality.
'Grim' and 'by' are both Danish elements, and it may be significant that the hamlet is situated on the Northamptonshire side of the ancient river crossing which would have been used by the armies of Danes from Northampton mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.
[4] When meadows and the recently disused race-course at Grimsbury were sold to the Great Western Railway circa 1850, the owner also sold the other part of his land, north of the Middleton Road to the Banbury Freehold Land Society, which was financially backed by Cobb's Bank, to build middle-class houses, but development was slow at the time and some plots were never built upon.
[4] The land in question and the location of today's Spice Ball Park are marked as "Liable to flooding" on the 1882, 1900, 1910 and 1922 Ordnance Survey maps.
Duke Street, was located at the western edge of Wilkins' (now demolished) brick pit, was developed around 1870.
[2][3] There was a substantial 'brick, tile and drain works' with a short tramway in it to the east of Grimsbury in the vicinity of Howard Street according to the 1882, 1883 1900, 1910, 1922 1923 and 1947 Ordnance Survey maps.
[5][6] A retail and residential development was built on the former site of the Bridge Motors Vauxhall dealership and opened in 2010.
Workmen found a fizzing and burning incendiary chemical that was suspected to be left over from a long-demolished World War I munitions factory and ammunition testing range.
Thames Valley Police closed the Tesco Express, The Pepper Pot pub and the Atlantis Fish bar and set up a 100 m (330 ft) cordon on 19 April 2012.
[10] The area around the Tesco Express Middleton Road, Grimsbury, witnessed the disposal of several lost pieces of World War I ordnance that remained buried after the closure of the local ammunition testing range.
In the late 1920s the economy of Banbury was revolutionised by the arrival of new industries and in particular by the relocation of the out of town livestock market to Grimsbury.
[2][3] It was formally closed in June 1998, after being abandoned several years earlier, and was replaced with a new housing development and Dashwood Banbury Academy, a primary school.
[1] Grimsbury Wesleyan Chapel in West Street was a neoclassical brick and stone building completed in 1871.
[27] It is a Gothic Revival building with north and south aisles joined to the nave by four-bay arcades.
In 2003 the church was redecorated with the central pillars being painted to reflect the decoration of the ceiling designed in the style of a canal narrowboat.