Marsh Gibbon is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

Buckinghamshire Buckinghamshire (), abbreviated Bucks, is a ceremonial county in South East England that borders Greater London to the south-east, Berkshire to the south, Oxfordshire to the west, Northamptonshire to the north, Bedfordshire to the north-ea ...

, England. It is close to the A41 and the border with

Oxfordshire Oxfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the north west of South East England. It is a mainly rural county, with its largest settlement being the city of Oxford. The county is a centre of research and development, primarily ...

about east of

Bicester Bicester ( ) is a historical market towngarden town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Cherwell (district), Cherwell district of northeastern Oxfordshire in Southern England that also comprises an Eco-towns, eco town at North Wes ...

History

The village name comes from the English word 'marsh', describing the typical state of land in the area due to the high

water table The water table is the upper surface of the zone of saturation. The zone of saturation is where the pores and fractures of the ground are saturated with water. It can also be simply explained as the depth below which the ground is saturated. T ...

of the

Aylesbury Vale The Aylesbury Vale (or Vale of Aylesbury) is a geographical region in Buckinghamshire, England, which is bounded by the Borough of Milton Keynes and South Northamptonshire to the north, Central Bedfordshire and the Borough of Dacorum ( Hertfor ...

. The affix 'Gibbon' derives from the family name 'Gibwen', the

lords of the manor Lord of the Manor is a title that, in Anglo-Saxon England, referred to the landholder of a rural estate. The lord enjoyed manorial rights (the rights to establish and occupy a residence, known as the manor house and demesne) as well as seigno ...

here in the twelfth century. In

manorial Manorialism, also known as the manor system or manorial system, was the method of land ownership (or "tenure") in parts of Europe, notably France and later England, during the Middle Ages. Its defining features included a large, sometimes forti ...

rolls of 1292 the village was recorded as ''Mersh Gibwyne'', though earlier (in 1086) it was known simply as ''Merse''. One of the two entries in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

for the village is unique in having the only comment of any kind, namely "Graviter et miserabiliter". In translation the complete entry reads: Ailric's manor, now named Westbury Manor, was given by

King Edward IV Edward IV (28 April 1442 – 9 April 1483) was King of England from 4 March 1461 to 3 October 1470, then again from 11 April 1471 until his death in 1483. He was a central figure in the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars in Englan ...

to the Company of Cooks in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, though it has since been sold into private hands. The second manor was the property of the

abbey An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns. The conce ...

of Grestein in

Normandy Normandy (; french: link=no, Normandie ; nrf, Normaundie, Nouormandie ; from Old French , plural of ''Normant'', originally from the word for "northman" in several Scandinavian languages) is a geographical and cultural region in Northwestern ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. However, in 1365 this was seized by

the Crown The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has different ...

because it belonged to a foreign church. In 1437 it was granted to an almshouse trust founded at

Ewelme Ewelme () is a village and civil parish in the Chiltern Hills in South Oxfordshire, north-east of the market town of Wallingford. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 1,048. To the east of the village is Cow Common and to the ...

in Oxfordshire. In 1617

James I James I may refer to: People *James I of Aragon (1208–1276) *James I of Sicily or James II of Aragon (1267–1327) *James I, Count of La Marche (1319–1362), Count of Ponthieu *James I, Count of Urgell (1321–1347) *James I of Cyprus (1334–13 ...

granted the Mastership of th
Ewelme Trust
to the Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford in whose hands it remains today. Its manor house is Elizabethan and situated just south of the thirteenth-century church and about 200 metres from Westbury Manor to the West. Following a skirmish at

Hillesden Hillesden is a village and civil parish in north-west Buckinghamshire, England, about south of Buckingham. The village name is Anglo-Saxon in origin, and means 'Hild's hill'. In the Domesday Book of 1086 the village was recorded as ''Ilesdo ...

in 1645, the parliamentarian troops were garrisoned here in Marsh Gibbon before marching on to

Boarstall Boarstall is a village and civil parish in the Aylesbury Vale district of Buckinghamshire, about west of Aylesbury. The parish is on the county boundary with Oxfordshire and the village is about southeast of the Oxfordshire market town of Bice ...

. The ground works of their encampment were visible in the field to northwest of the Ewelme

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals w ...

but have since been flattened in the late 1950s.

Geography

To the east of the village is the hamlet of Little Marsh and to the south east is the hamlet of Summerstown.

Amenities

The parish church of Marsh Gibbon is dedicated to St Mary the Virgin.

Robert Clavering Robert Clavering (1676 – 21 July 1747) was an English bishop and Hebraist. Life He graduated B.A. from the University of Edinburgh, and then went to Lincoln College, Oxford. He was Fellow and tutor of University College, in 1701. In 1714 he ...

, who later became the Bishop of Peterborough, was the

rector Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to: Style or title *Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations *Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...

from 1719. The village has two pubs, the Greyhound and the Plough. North of the village and just outside

Poundon Poundon is a hamlet and a civil parish in Aylesbury Vale district in Buckinghamshire, England. It is located near the Oxfordshire border, about four miles northeast of Bicester, three miles southwest of Steeple Claydon. The hamlet name is Anglo ...

, is Tower Hill Business Park. This was previously Poundon Hill Wireless Station, a FCO/

MI6 The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6 ( Military Intelligence, Section 6), is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligenc ...

signals intelligence Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of ''signals'', whether communications between people (communications intelligence—abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication ( ...

station. Marsh Gibbon Church of England School is a mixed,

voluntary aided A voluntary aided school (VA school) is a state-funded school in England and Wales in which a foundation (charity), foundation or Charitable trust, trust (usually a religious organisation), contributes to building costs and has a substantial influ ...

primary school, with approximately 100 pupils. It takes children from the age of four through to the age of eleven.

References

{{authority control Villages in Buckinghamshire Civil parishes in Buckinghamshire