Swalcliffe or Swacliffe, Oxfordshire

Historical Description

Swalcliffe or Swacliffe, a village and a parish in Oxfordshire. The village stands 5¾ miles WSW of Banbury station on the G.W.R., and has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Banbury. The parish includes the townships of Epwell, Shutford, and West Shutford, which are noticed separately. Acreage, 1679; population of the civil parish, 287; of the ecclesiastical, with Epwell and Shutford, 864. The manor belongs to the Wykeham-Musgrave family. Swalcliffe Park is a chief residence. A double-ditched British camp is at Madmarston. Many Roman remains have been found at Blackland. The living is a vicarage, with Epwell and Shutford chapelries, in the diocese of Oxford; net value, £150 with residence. Patron, New College, Oxford. The church has Norman, Early English, Decorated, and Later English portions, and consists of chancel, nave, aisles, S porch, and an embattled western tower. It contains some ancient and interesting brasses, tombs, and monuments, and some good stained windows.

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.

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 Swalcliffe or Swacliffe from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Swalcliffe (St. Peter and St. Paul))

Land and Property

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

Maps

Online maps of Swalcliffe or Swacliffe 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.