The Oxebode, Gloucester

The Oxebode is a street in central Gloucester, southwest England, that does not look particularly remarkable – a typical shopping street with broad pavements and several mature plane trees to shade it. However, the unusual name – found nowhere else in the country – is a clue to the strange story that  is associated with it.

Oxebode is a corruption of “ox body”. The story goes back to medieval times when oxen – castrated bulls – were often used in England as draft animals for hauling carts or drawing ploughs. It was the unfortunate fate of one such ox that gave the street its name.

Gloucester is a city that dates back to Roman times, although the oldest domestic buildings to be seen today are from the 15^th century. In mediaeval times Mitre Street was lined by houses that leaned towards each other on either side and were almost touching at the end of the street as it led into Northgate Street. Indeed, the funnel was so narrow that an ox, being led to market, became wedged solid between the houses and could not be freed. 

The solution to the problem was somewhat gruesome but it did the trick to the satisfaction of all concerned, with the sole exception of the ox.

A local butcher was summoned to kill the ox where it stood and cut it up into pieces of meat that were then sold to the local populace. 

The event led to the street being renamed Oxbody Street and to a local nursery rhyme: 

There’s an ox lying dead at the end of the lane
His head on the pathway, his feet in the drain.
The lane is so narrow, his back is so wide,
He got stuck in the road twixt a house on each side. 

He couldn’t go forward, he couldn’t go back
He was stuck just as fast as a nail in a crack.
And the people all shouted ‘So tightly he fits
We must kill him and carve him and move him in bits’.

So a butcher dispatched him and then had a sale
Of his ribs and his sirloin, his rump and his tail.
And the farmer he told me ‘I’ll never again
Drive cattle to market down Oxbode Lane’.

© John Welford