•  Enstone, Oxfordshire

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In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Enstone like this:

ENSTONE, a parish in Chipping-Norton district, Oxford; on an affluent of the river Isis, 3½ miles N of Chorlbury r. station, and 4¼ ESE of Chipping-Norton. It contains the hamlets of Church-Enstone, Neat-Enstone, Lidstone, Cleveley, Radford, and Gagingwell; and has a head post office. ...

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‡ Acres, 6, 177. Real property, £8, 859. Pop., 1, 198. Houses, 256. The name Enstone alludes to the Entastan, or Giant's stone, an upright block, 8 feet high, now commonly called the Hoar-stone, formerly part of a cromlech, other stones of which are still near. Lidstone hamlet takes its name from a similar stone. Celebrated water-works were established at Neat-Enstone, by Thomas Bushell, secretary to Lord Bacon; were visited, in 1636, in a pompous manner, by Charles I.; and are noticed, as follows, by Evelyn in 1664, -"I went to see the famous wells, artificial and natural grotto, and fountains, or Bushell's Wells. It is an extraordinary solitude. There be here two mummies and a grotto, where he lay in a hammock like an Indian." The living is a rectory in the diocese of Oxford. Value, £357.* Patron, Lord Dillon. The church was formerly attached to Winchcombe abbey; is traditionally associated with the memory of St. Kenelm, son of Kenulphus, king of Mercia; and has some good transition Norman arches. There are Baptist, Wesleyan, and Roman Catholic chapels, national schools, and charities £68.

Enstone through time

Enstone is now part of West Oxfordshire district. Click here for graphs and data of how West Oxfordshire has changed over two centuries. For statistics about Enstone itself, go to Units and Statistics.

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