h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Home to perhaps the most famous University in the world, Oxfordshire is also home to pictureque towns like Faringdon, the Chiltern Hills and even the Vale of the White Horse. But what else do you know about Oxfordshire? Share your knowledge with us and help us to write our entry on this lovely county.

Paully

sure have been some very famous people... literary work et al. JRR Tolkien has connections and there are many other people connected such as Philip Pullman et al.

Supergrass are from Oxford. So were Ride. And Talulah Gosh

Supergrass went to school with me

One of the most fascinating places I ever went to, are the Rollrightstones
http://www.rollrightstones.co.uk/

The BBC recently asked people to name their favourite 'Oxfordshire Wonders' so I sent the link to my friend. He told me, that neither the
'White Horse Hill', nor 'the Ridgeway' would 'really' belong to Oxfordshire, because they have 'been stolen from Berkshire' in the boundary change in the 1970ies

Hmmm...well as a resident of Oxfordshire, the main point for me at the moment is that house prices are the highest in the country apart from London!! We don't get London salaries though...

Lbclaire

That's not what I've heard on the radio, or read on the BBC site, I think they said house prices have increased throughout the whole country, but not so much in Oxford - but not too sure about it.

As far as I know, and I heard it said again on TV the other day, they may not have increased as much in Oxfordshire, but are still higher than (almost) everywhere else.

Of course, I could be wrong. It happens...frequently!

Lbclaire

You're probably right, after all, you live in Oxfordshire and will know, whereas I don't

I've heard contradictory evidence that London and Oxford have similar salaries.

The basic salaries might be the same, but that doesn't take into account the London weighting. I was relocated from Oxford to London a few years ago, doing the same job for the same company, but my salary was increased to include a London weighting.

I think I'll take a back seat on this unsure on what 'weighting' means.

Plus I have no intentions on moving to London but am well acquainted with Oxford

The 'weighting' is just an extra amount you get paid for working in London. If you look through job advertisements they often state "salary + London weighting".

hmm i dont know much about salariesand things round here, but geneal things about oxfordshire:

flat
historical
never, ever, EVER go to didcot if you can help it
very middle-ish in the whole scheme of things
home of many nutters (eg, me)

...and im sure i can think of some more.... hmm

flat puh who you trying to kid?

historical yes with the Universities and the like

power station at Didcot enough said

middleish ... got to disagree with you there its south england not manchester.

better to be insane than sane and boring

go on....

I have to disagree with flat - I have just moved to North Oxfordshire (Banbury) from East Anglia (Peterborough)and I can safely say that it is not flat here.

Salaries are much the same as the rest of the country in the professions but the house prices in North Oxfordhire are a great deal lower than in Oxford itself (160 - 180K for a 4 bed semi close to the town centre, whereas you can add at least 100 - 200k for a similar property in Oxford [0X1])

There seems to be a pattern with the major historical cities as I found the same sort of disparity of prices the closer you got to Cambridge.

What seems to be happening here, is that many people who work in Oxford are moving to places like Banbury because their salaries just can't meet the ridiculous prices in Oxford itself. After all - it's only 40 minutes away.

Talking of London Weighting, there has apparently been a campaign for some time now trying to get an Oxford weighting but this keeps getting blocked. Some companies do however offer a large town allowance for such places as Oxford and Cambridge (Mine used to - don't know what happened to that - I suspect they stopped it while no one was looking ) but this was only half or quarter that of London Weighting, which is currently £3400 pa. Oddly enough this is about what it costs for a season ticket on chiltern railways from Banbury to London, but I think that this just a co-incience; because if they had thought about it they would have realised that London Weighting is taxable.

HG.

looks like when the entry is done there will be talking of weighting

I'm delighted to announce that we already have two County entries in Peer Review, waiting to receive any bouquets or brickbats that people might lob in their general direction! If you're currently either working on or contributing to a County entry of your own right now, you might like to have a quick look to see how some other researchers have tackled this challenge. They are: County Fermanagh (A6092606) and Norfolk (A6108473).

Hope you enjoy reading them!

Paully

Uups, sort of 'stopped' the bits I have complied. So I'll not post it in this thread but do it as an entry ? I've never yet done an entry, that's scarey

Good luck I'm sure you'll be fine