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For centuries houses in Wroxton and nearby villages in the north of Oxfordshire had been built from the local ironstone. As the war continued, the need for iron to make guns and ammunition became more and more pressing and the economics of quarrying, transporting the stone for processing to the Midlands or South Wales became more viable.

In 1917, the Oxford Ironstone Company applied for an allocation of 250 German prisoners of war (POWs) to lay railway tracks from the quarries near Wroxton to join the mainline in Banbury.

The Banbury Guardian reported the arrival of the POWs and that they were housed in the town's workhouse. It also records the escape of two of them and their recapture.

Today, little remains of the railway and the quarries have closed but the North Oxfordshire District Scout's campsite still has tantalising relics along the route the lines took. This is private property but part of the route, nearer Banbury itself, is now a footpath and nature reserve although most people walking it will find few clues to its original function.

Location: Wroxton, North Oxfordshire OX15 6AY
Image: Ironstone Railway route today
Presented by Jane Markham from Podcats Productions

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