Monument Business Park offers business parks and business premises (serviced offices / virtual offices / business premises) near Chalgrove in Oxford, Oxfordshire, UK.
The business park at Monument Business Park and it's business premises and business accommodation include Hampden House which also offers conference facilities (conference venues / meeting rooms / training rooms) for hire to both residents / tenants of its offices and serviced office accommodation (workshops, units and business environment) close to the M40 in Chalgrove and Oxford, Oxfordshire, UK.
The English Civil War
In June 1643, the Royalists and the Parliamentarians faced each other across the Oxfordshire plain. King Charles 1st had established his headquarters at Oxford having just lost Reading, but retaining Wallingford. The Parliamentarians held London and with their present headquarters at Thame, were encroaching into villages at the foot of the hills. The Kings nephew Prince Rupert, received intelligence from a deserter named John Urry who told him there was a pay wagon travelling to the Parliamentary troops at Thame. This gave the Prince a grand excuse to carry out a daring raid into enemy territory.
The Prince left Oxford in the late afternoon on 17th June with 1,100 troopers on horseback, 400 dragoons and 500 infantry. His force crossed the River Thame at Chiselhampton before heading for Chinnor. A small billet of some 200 men were killed or captured here, but the pay wagon, which had heard the commotion, had escaped to the woods. The Prince headed back to Oxford via the north of Chalgrove village, and to the comparative safety of Chiselhampton Bridge. Some 750 Parliamentarian troops finally caught up with the Royalists at Chalgrove, where Rupert turned to fight. Using the protection of hedges, Rupert managed to surprise the advancing troops and the ensuing battle resulted in a complete rout of the Parliamentarians.
This battle would have been a fairly insignificant event during the Civil War, had it not been for the mortal wounding of Colonel John Hampden. One of our great parliamentarians, John Hampden was a leading reformer and a man of high principles. He earned the title of the 'Father of Democracy', and was destined to become a leader of the Country. Two hundred years after his death, on 18th June, 1843, a magnificent stone monument was erected in his memory. The monument was erected adjacent the nearest road to the battlefield. Monument Business Park lies between the monument and the battle site.