It is about 2+1⁄2 miles (4 km) southeast of the city centre of Oxford, between Rose Hill, Blackbird Leys, Cowley, and Sandford-on-Thames.

[1] In the Middle Ages, and perhaps earlier, most of Littlemore was a detached part of the parish of St Mary the Virgin in Oxford.

[2] Early in the 12th century Sir Robert de Sandford founded a priory of Benedictine nuns on a piece of land called Cherley.

Subsequent members of the de Sandford family made further endowments: another nine virgates of land in Sandford, 10 shillings a year from Wytham, tithes from Bayworth and Lambourn, and land at Garsington, Kennington, Sydenham, Oxfordshire and Liverton in the parish of Chilton.

[4] In 1445 Dr John Derby visited the priory on behalf of William Alnwick, Bishop of Lincoln.

The nuns were breaking their Rule by eating meat every day, three lay women were boarding at the priory, and a Cistercian monk frequently visited and drank with the prioress.

[4] In 1517 Edmund Horde visited the priory on behalf of a subsequent Bishop of Lincoln, William Atwater.

[5] In 2012 The East Oxford Archaeology & History Project excavated part of Minchery Farm Paddock.

Finds of fine pottery, metalwork, decorated tiles and animal bones suggest it was a domestic building.

One burial was in a limestone cist, positioned under what would have been the centre of the tower, and contained the remains of a woman aged 45 or older.

In 1828 John Henry Newman was appointed vicar of St Mary's and he started agitating for a separate church at Littlemore.

[12] After it closed, some of the rear blocks were acquired by Yamanouchi (now Astellas Pharma) for use as a research facility [13] but then sold on, in 2008, to the SAE Institute for use as a training establishment.

[14] Meanwhile, the Littlemore Mental Health Centre,[15] which includes the Ashurst Psychiatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), has been established on the opposite side of the road.

In 1963 British Railways withdrew passenger services between Princes Risborough and Oxford and closed all intermediate stations including Littlemore.

[18] The Birmingham Oratory bought the property in 1951,[2] and members of an International Religious Order are residents and custodians of the college.

[2] The local historian Edmund Arnold Greening Lamborn lived at 34 Oxford Road, Littlemore from 1911 to 1950.