An in-depth study from the Victoria County History of a group of rural parishes in the West Oxfordshire Cotswolds, stretching from Chastleton on the Gloucestershire border to Enstone and Kiddington.


This volume explores the history of a group of rural parishes in west Oxfordshire, set within a typical Cotswold landscape and long dominated by traditional sheep-corn farming. Much of the area belonged before the Norman Conquest to a large royal estate focused on nearby Shipton-under-Wychwood, whose gradual fragmentation gave rise to the later pattern of villages and parishes, while its southern parts (adjoining Wychwood Forest) were shaped by medieval assarting, and retain tracts of woodland and wood pasture. The area is also notable for some important country houses set in landscaped parks, as at Chastelton, Ditchley, Cornwell, Kiddington, and Sarsden, and contains several deserted medieval settlements. The area's landscape, buildings, settlements, farming, economy, and social and religious history are all explored in detail, including the local importance of Roman Catholic recusancy in several parishes, the presence of Second World War airfields, and more recent industries such as the 'Team Enstone' Formula One factory opened in 1991.