Woodstock, Oxfordshire

Historical Description

Woodstock, a market-town, a municipal borough, and a parish in Oxfordshire. The town stands on the river Glyme, 3½ miles NW from Kidlington station on the G.W.R., 8 NE from Witney, 8 NW from Oxford, and 72 from London. It has a station on the Blenheim and Woodstock branch railway, which communicates with the G.W.R. at Kidlington. It was known to the Saxons as Wudestoke, and had a royal palace built by Ethelred, rebuilt by Henry I., destroyed in the time of the Commonwealth, and now extinct. It adjoins the ducal park of Blenheim, where the royal palace stood, and which we have separately noticed, and had the poet Chaucer as a resident. Alfred the Great occupied the palace, and translated in it " Boethius " into Saxon; Henry I. established at it the earliest zoological garden in England; Henry II. received at it the homage of Malcolm of Scotland and Rhys of Wales, and made at it the " bower" for fair Rosamond; Henry III. received at it Alexander of Scotland; Edward III. held a Parliament at it in 1275; Prince Edmund of Woodstock and the Black Prince were born in it; royal tournaments were held at it in 1355 and 1391; Elizabeth was confined in it by Mary in 1554, and visited it in 15,72; James I. visited it in 1603 and 1624; Charles I. visited it in 1629, and the Parliamentary Commissioners occupied it in 1646-49, and were then plagued by the tricks of " the merry devil" Joe Collins, the prototype of " Wildrake " in Scott's novel of " Woodstock." The town gives the title of Viscount to the Duke of Portland, is a borough by prescription, first chartered by Henry VI., and now governed under a new charter granted in 1885 by a mayor, 4 aldermen, and 12 conncillors, who also act as the urban district council. It is supplied with water from works situated in Blenheim Park, the property of the Duke of Marlborough. The town is the head of a union and county court district. It sent two members to Parliament with some intermissions from 1301-2 until 1832, when the number was reduced to one, and the borough was disfranchised under the Redistribution of Seats Act, 1885. The town-hall, which was erected in 1766 by George, fourth Duke of Marlborough, is a building of stone, and is used partly as a market and partly as a public hall and council chamber. There is a county police station with a lock-up, a head post office, and a bank. The town was formerly famous for its manufacture of leather gloves, which figure several times in English history, but the trade, though still carried on, is shorn of much of its former importance. The market day is Tuesday, and a cattle market is held on the first Tuesday in each month. There is a statute fair on the first Tuesday in October, but other fairs for cattle and cheese, formerly of some importance, have become obsolete. The living is a chapelry, annexed to the rectory of Bladon; joint net value, £99 with residence, in the gift of the Duke of Marlborough. The church of St Mary was partially rebuilt in 1785 on the site of a chantry founded by King John. It was again partially rebuilt in 1878, and it is now a building of stone in mixed styles, consisting of chancel, nave, aisles, N chapel, W porch, and a western tower with pinnacles. It has a fine ancient font, a brass of 1441, and some ancient tombs and memorials. There is a mission chapel at Old Woodstock, and there are Baptist, United Free Methodist, and Wesleyan chapels. There are almshouses for six poor women, an endowed grammar school, and several small charities. The workhouse at Bladon has accommodation for 300 inmates. The old borough of Woodstock was conterminous with the parish, but the new borough comprises, in addition to the area of the old borough of New Woodstock, Old Woodstock, which is part of the parish of Wootton, and Hensington, a part of the adjoining parish of Bladon. The population of the municipal borough is 1628. Area of the parish of Woodstock, 62 acres; population, 1136; of the ecclesiastical parish, with Bladon, 2170. The manor, with most of the land, belongs to the Duke of Marlborough.

Woodstock or Mid Parliamentary Division of Oxfordshire was formed under the Redistribution of Seats Act of 1885, and returns one member to the House of Commons. Population, 50,134. The division includes the following:- Bampton (East)-Aston and Cote, Bampton, Brighthampton, Chimney, Coggs, Crawley, Curbridge, Ducklington, Eynsham, Hailey, Hardwick, Lew, Minster Lovel, Northmoor, Ramsden, Shifford, Southleigh, Standlake, Stanton Harcourfc, Witney, Yelford; Bampton (West)-Alvescot, Asthal, Blackbourton, Brizenorton, Broadwell, Broughton Poggs, Burford, Clanfield, Faringdon (Little), Filkins, Fulbrook, Grafton, Holwell, Kelmscot, Kencot, Langford, Radcot, Shilton, Swinbrook, Taynton, Upton and Signet, Westwell, Widford; Ploughley-Ambrosden, Ardley, Amcot, Bicester (King's End), Bicester (Market End), Blackthorn, Bletchingdon, Bucknell, Charlton-on-Otmoor, Chesterton, Cottisford, Caversfield, Fencot and Murcot, Finmere, Fring-ford, Fritwell, Goddington, Hardwick, Hethe, Heyford (Lower), Heyford (Upper), Islip, Kirtlington, Lannton, Mer-ton, Middleton (Stoney), Mixbury, Newton Purcell, Oddington, Piddington, Shelswell, Somerton, Souldern, Stoke Lyne, Stratton Audley, Tusmore, Wendlebury, Weston-on-the-Green; Wootton (South)-Asterleigh, Begbroke, Bladon, Blenheim, Cassington, Combe, Glympton, Gosford, Hanborough, Hensington, Kiddington, Kidlington, Northleigh, Osney Hill, Shipton-on-Cherwell, Stonesfield, Tackley and Wighthill, Thrupp, Watereaton, Wilcot, Wootton, Yarnton; Bullingdon (part of)-Beckley, Cutteslowe, Elstield, Forest Hill (with Shotover and Shotover Hill Place), Hampton Gay, Hampton Poyle, Horton-cum-Studley, Noke, Stanton (St John), Stowood, Studley, Woodeaton, so much of the parishes of Headington, Marston, St Clements, St Giles, and Woolvercot as is not included in the municipal borough of Oxford, and so much of the parishes of Cowley and Iffley as is included in the parliamentary borough of Oxford and not in the municipal borough.

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 Woodstock from the following:

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

Land and Property

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

Maps

Online maps of Woodstock 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.