Bicester, Oxfordshire : Place names

Names from historical writing:

The following appear as names for Bicester. Follow the links for what the author actually said:

Name	Author	Source
BERNACESTER	William Camden	Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610).
BICESTER	John Bartholomew	Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
BICESTER	John Marius Wilson	Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (Edinburgh: A Fullarton & Co., 1870-72).
BICESTER KINGS END	John Bartholomew	Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
BICESTER MARKET END	John Bartholomew	Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
BURCESTER	William Camden	Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610).
BURENCEASTER	William Camden	Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610).

NB: These variant names come from our collections of historical travel writing and descriptive gazetteers:

The above links take you to the first reference to this particular version of the name within a book of travel writing, or to the relevant gazetteer entry.
Some names may derive from research by antiquarian writers such as William Camden and Thomas Pennant into the Roman, Saxon and medieval names of places. Their claims are not always supported by modern place-name researchers.
References by travel writers to the place using its "normal" name are not included. Descriptive gazetteer entries are included only if the name does not appear anywhere else.

Names for administrative units:

These names were used for units associated with Bicester. Click on the links for details of the units and their names:

Name	Unit Type	Source
BICESTER	Built-up Area	Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal (Built Up Areas (December 2024) Boundaries EW)
	Ecclesiastical Parish (EP)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Southern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979), p. 392.
	Local Government District (RD)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Southern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979), p. 666.
	Local Government District (UD)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Southern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979), p. 666.
	Parish-level Unit (CP)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Southern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979), p. 392.
	Parish-level Unit (CP/AP)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Southern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979), p. 392.
	Poor Law Union/Reg. District (RegD/PLU)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Southern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979), p. 664.
	Registration sub-District	1911 Census of England and Wales, Table 5, 'Registration Counties, Districts and Sub-districts with their constituent civil parishes. - Urban or Rural District in which each parish is situated; Area; families or separate occupiers, and population, 1901 and 1911; and population enumerated in Institutions, large establishments, and on vessels, &c., 1911'.
	Rural Deanery	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Southern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979), p. 780.
	Sanitary District (USD)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Southern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979), p. 665.
	Sanitary District (RSD)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Southern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979), p. 665.
BICESTER AND ISLIP	Rural Deanery	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Southern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979), p. 782.
BICESTER AND WOODSTOCK	Constituency (CCon)	House of Commons Library, Boundary review 2023: Which seats will change in the UK?
BICESTER EAST	Modern (2024) Ward	Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal (Wards (December 2024) Names and Codes in the UK)
BICESTER KINGS END	Parish-level Unit (CP/Tn)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Southern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979), p. 392.
BICESTER MARKET END	Parish-level Unit (Tn/CP)	F. Youngs, Local Administrative Units: Southern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979), p. 392.
BICESTER NORTH AND CAVERSFIELD	Modern (2024) Ward	Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal (Wards (December 2024) Names and Codes in the UK)
BICESTER SOUTH AND AMBROSDEN	Modern (2024) Ward	Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal (Wards (December 2024) Names and Codes in the UK)
BICESTER WEST	Modern (2024) Ward	Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal (Wards (December 2024) Names and Codes in the UK)
E05010925	Modern (2024) Ward	Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal (Wards (December 2024) Names and Codes in the UK)
E05010926	Modern (2024) Ward	Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal (Wards (December 2024) Names and Codes in the UK)
E05010928	Modern (2024) Ward	Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal (Wards (December 2024) Names and Codes in the UK)
E05012968	Modern (2024) Ward	Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal (Wards (December 2024) Names and Codes in the UK)
E14001090	Constituency (CCon)	House of Commons Library, Boundary review 2023: Which seats will change in the UK?
E290867	Local Government District (UD)
E63011249	Built-up Area	Office for National Statistics, Open Geography Portal (Built Up Areas (December 2024) Boundaries EW)
KINGS END	Parish-level Unit (CP/Tn)	1861 Census of England and Wales, Table 1, 'Area; Houses and Inhabitants, 1851 and 1861, in Districts, Sub-districts, Parishes and Places'.

NB: These are all the names of all the administrative units which we have associated with Bicester, and you must judge whether all or even any of them are variant names for the place. They may well include the names of other locations or areas:

For cities, the associated administrative units will usually include parishes, especially ecclesiastical parishes, one of whose names is the name of the city followed by a saint's dedication, with just the saint's name as another variant. Parish names will sometimes also include "places" within towns.
Districts usually contain more than one settlement, and some districts had their names changed to take the name of a completely different settlement. As we link each administrative unit to just one of our "places", usually the last place the unit was named after, in these cases the name for a completely different place will appear on this page.
Similarly, a unit may sometimes be named after a particular settlement it contains and sometimes to indicate its location within a higher level unit. This was very common among British parliamentary constituencies in rural areas, one name referring to their main town and another indicating that they were in, say, the southern part of the relevant county.

Every name listed here is linked to the particular historical source in which it appears, but we cannot claim that these are all the historical names of Bicester, or that our references are to the first usage of the names. Similarly, we have tried to ensure that names included here are not transcription errors by ourselves, but it is possible they are the result of errors made when the historical sources were printed, or the result of visiting authors or census officials mis-hearing local names.