Minster Lovell, Oxfordshire

Historical Description

Minster Lovell, a village and a parish in Oxfordshire. The village stands on the river Windrush, between two hills, near Wychwood Forest, 1½ mile SE of Akeman Street, and 2¼ miles NW by W of Witney railway station on the G.W.R.; was called only Minster till the time of Henry II., and took then the additional name of Lovell from the owners of the manor. It has a post office under Witney; money order and telegraph office, Witney. Acreage of parish, 1951; population, 443. The parish contains one of Feargus O'Connor's allotment estates (1847), consisting of 250 acres divided into 79 allotments or small holdings of 2, 3, and 4 acres respectively, each with a house on it. These small holdings are all let and in a good state of cultivation, and there is a great demand for them, so that here the scheme has proved a success, though it is said to have failed in other places. The ruins of an ancient mansion of the Lovell family stand near the church, and an old tradition asserts that Francis Lord Lovell, who disappeared after the battle of Stoke in 1487, was starved to death in one of its secret rooms, his bones being found about the beginning of the 18th century. The manor belongs to the Dean family. A Benedictine priory, a cell to Ivry Abbey in Normandy, was founded here in the time of King John; went, at the suppression of alien monasteries to Eton College, and is now represented by ruins of a hall, with a groined and deep-moulded porch and some other interesting details, in Later English architecture. The place is said to be the scene of Clara Reeve's story of the " Old English Baron." The. living is a vicarage in the diocese of Oxford; net value, £141 with residence. Patron, Eton College. The church is a fine building of stone in the Late Perpendicular style- cruciform, with a central tower, possessing many beautiful features; contains a fine effigies of Francis Lord Lovel, who figured conspicuously in the time of Richard III.; a splendid monument, encircled with military trophies, to the memory of Mr Henry Heylyn (06. 1695), and some other interesting tombs and memorials; and stands adjacent to the ruins of the priory. There are Wesleyan and Primitive Methodist chapels.

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 Minster Lovell from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Minster, Lovell (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 Minster Lovell 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.