Forest Hill with Shotover, Oxfordshire

Historical Description

Forest Hill with Shotover, a parish in Oxfordshire, 1½ mile NNW of Wheatley station on the G.W.R., and 5 miles E by N of Oxford. It has a post office under Oxford; money order and telegraph office, Wheatley. Area of the parish, 1979 acres; population, 343. Mary Powell, the first wife of Milton, lived here, and was married here to Milton; and some parts of her father's house are still standing. Sbotover, formerly a separate parish, was in 1883 included with the extra-parochial tract of Shotover Hill Place, in the parish of Forest Hill. Shotover House, an ancient mansion standing in extensive pleasure grounds and park, was visited by Queen Elizabeth, George I., and George II. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford; gross yearly value, £120 with residence. Patron, Lincoln College, Oxford. The church stands on a hill, is covered with ivy, and has a stone font under a neat wooden cover.

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 Forest Hill with Shotover from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Forest-Hill (St. Nicholas))

Land and Property

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

Maps

Online maps of Forest Hill with Shotover 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.