Enstone, Oxfordshire

Historical Description

Enstone, a parish in Oxfordshire, on an affluent of the river Isis, 3½ miles N from the Charlbury station on the G.W.R., and 4½ ESE from Chipping-Norton. It contains the hamlets of Church-Enstone, Ncat-Enstone, Lidstone, Clevcley, Chalford, Radford, and Gagingwell, and has a head post office. Acreage, 6245; population, 1144. The name Enstone alludes to the Entastan or Giant's stone, an upright block nearly 11 feet high, now commonly called the Hoarstone, formerly part of a cromlech, other stones of which are still near. Lidstone hamlet takes its name from a similar stone. Celebrated waterworks were established at Neat-Enstone by Thomas Bushell, secretary to Lord Bacon, were visited in 1636 in a pompous manner by Charles I., and are noticed as follows by Evelyn in 1644 :-" I went to see the famous wells, artificial and natural grotto, and fountains, or Bushell's Wells. It is an extraordinary solitude. There be here two mummies and a grotto, where he lay in a ham-mocklikean Indian." The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford; net value, £209 with residence, in the gift of Viscount Dillon. The church was formerly attached to Winch-combe Abbey, is traditionally associated with the memory of 8t Kenelm, son of Kenulphus, king of Mercia, and has some good transition Norman arches. There is a Baptist chapel at Cleveley, a Primitive Methodist chapel at Lidstone, a Wesleyan chapel at Neat-Enstone, and a Roman Catholic chapel with an orphanage at Radford.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

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.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Enstone from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Enstone (St. Kenelm))

Land and Property

A full transcript of the Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Oxfordshire is available online

Maps

Online maps of Enstone 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.