The M40 motorway links London, Oxford and Birmingham, a distance of approximately 89 miles (143 km)
The motorway between London and Oxford was constructed in stages between 1967 and 1974
Late in the 1960s, not long after the first stretch opened, the Ministry of Transport announced the possibility of building a motorway to link London with Birmingham as an alternative to the M1-M6 route – as well as improving road links to the South Coast ports for The Midlands – but it was not until 1983 that the decision to extend the M40 from Oxford to the south of Birmingham was made.
Construction began at Warwick in October 1987, with work on the section around Banbury starting in February 1988, and finally, the section north of Oxford in July 1989. The section between the M42 and Warwick opened in December 1989, and the remainder in January 1991
Later, the A422 was re-routed, cutting across Banbury Lane, to create a dual carriageway running from M40 Junction 11 up to the Middleton Cheney roundabout, creating a new junction with B4525
The M40 Banbury stretch essentially separated Nethercote and what was previously the hamlet of Hulscote, from the rest of Banbury