Osney Abbey

Osney Abbey was a medieval house of Augustinian canons founded in 1129 on an island south-west of Oxford city centre. It stood beside the River Thames, near the old mill and close to the present railway line and Botley Road. The priory became an abbey around 1154 and later served briefly as the first cathedral of Oxford. After the Dissolution it was pulled down and its stone reused across the city. The abbey played a notable part in national church affairs. In 1222 the Synod of Oxford met there to put the Lateran decrees into effect. In 1237 a fight between scholars and the papal legate’s household left the legate’s cook dead and the city under interdict. The canons also engineered the Thames navigation to power their mill, and after 1542 the site became the first home of the Bishop of Oxford. Today only a single timber-framed building survives from the abbey, now Grade II listed. It stands beside the converted Osney Mill and close to Osney Lock and marina. To the east is Osney Cemetery, and to the north the busy Botley Road and Oxford station. The remains are quiet reminders of a once-great monastery on the edge of the city.