Template:Wp-Botley, Oxfordshire-History

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Botley was first settled in the Saxon era. Its toponym comes from the Old English, meaning a woodland clearing of a man called Bota. It has since fallen within the parish of North Hinksey, and so was historically in the county of Berkshire, as marked in its northern half by the Vale of White Horse district boundary on the map. Because the main road west out of Oxford has passed through Botley since the 16th century, development since then was centred here rather than in the village of North Hinksey itself, slightly further southeast. From the 1880s the centre of the village began to be called Old Botley, in distinction to the New Botley development along Botley Road in Oxford. The name Old Botley is preserved in a street set back from the main road. The major development which began in the 1930s took place to the west, beyond the current ring road.

To the north of Botley was the lost village of Seacourt. The site of the former village is in neighbouring Wytham parish, but it is commemorated in Botley in the names of Seacourt Tower, Seacourt Hall and the Seacourt Bridge public house.