Brightwell or Britwell, Oxfordshire
Historical Description
Brightwell or Britwell, a parish in Oxfordshire, 3 miles W from Watlington station on the G.W.R., and 6 NE from Wallingford. It includes the liberty of Cadwell, and its post town is Tetsworth; money order and telegraph office, Watlington. Acreage, 1612; population, 242. Brightwell Park is a chief residence. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Oxford; value, £318 with residence. The church is fine Decorated English, with rich Perpendicular tower, and contains tombs of the Carletons. Brightwell Upper Town is a small village in this parish. Bishops Westfaling and Paul were rectors.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
| Ancient County | Oxfordshire | |
| Ecclesiastical parish | Brightwell-Baldwin St. Bartholomew | |
| Hundred | Ewelme | |
| Poor Law union | Henley |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
Ancestry.co.uk, in association with Oxfordshire Family History Society and Oxfordshire History Centre, have images of the Parish Registers for Oxfordshire online.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Brightwell or Britwell from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Brightwell-Baldwin (St. Bartholomew))
Land and Property
A full transcript of the Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Oxfordshire is available online
Maps
Online maps of Brightwell or Britwell are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Oxfordshire newspapers online:
- Oxford Journal
- Banbury Advertiser
- Banbury Guardian
- Oxford University and City Herald
- Oxford Chronicle and Reading Gazette
- Faringdon Advertiser and Vale of the White Horse Gazette
- Oxford Times
- Banbury Beacon
- Ossett Observer
Visitations Heraldic
The Visitations of Oxfordshire, 1566, 1574 &1634 are available on the Heraldry page.