A thriving town with a proud military heritage, Carterton is also on the doorstep of some of the county’s most pleasing countryside, as Martin Elvery finds out.

Carterton, West Oxfordshire’s second largest town, is a pleasing paradox. It is a thriving modern community but is only a stone’s throw away from the Cotswold Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

During the medieval period the main road through Carterton was one of the most important in the country, taking trains of packhorses laden with Cotswold wool over Radcot Bridge and on to Southampton for export to the weaving centres of Europe.

The present town dates from 1894 when part of the land was sold to London based Homesteads Limited whose director was one William Carter. Carter’s mission was to attract settlers who would form the land creating an agricultural settlement. He divided the land into plots of six acres and sold bungalows costing from £120.

Many of the settlers were retired soldiers and ‘refugees’ from other towns who came attracted by the cheap land and housing and the promise of an idyllic rural life. The experiment was successful and Carterton soon made its name in the market gardening world. Black grapes from Frenchester Nurseries and the famous Carterton tomatoes were sold at Covent Garden Market.

In 1935, work started on what would become RAF Brize Norton which became the home of USAF bomber wings. The RAF returned in 1965 and undertook a large building programme making it into the largest RAF base in the UK. Much of the town’s housing was Ministry of defence, but new homes were built in the 2000s with the new Shilton Park housing estate providing a mix of housing for private ownership and social letting.

Military repatriations for dead service personnel have now been routed to Brize Norton at a brand new £2.8 m repatriation centre and a special memorial garden has been established in Carterton to honour the dead.

The town has a leisure centre, a shopping centre, supermarkets and a library, with more new homes, shops, schools and supermarkets all in the pipeline.

With a proud military history, Carterton is definitely one to watch in the 21st century.