Shirburn 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 ...

about south of

Thame Thame is a market town and civil parish in Oxfordshire, about east of the city of Oxford and southwest of Aylesbury. It derives its name from the River Thame which flows along the north side of the town and forms part of the county border wi ...

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 ...

. It contains the

Grade I listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

, 14th-century Shirburn Castle, along with its surrounding,

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

park, and a parish church, the oldest part of which is from the Norman period. The parish has a high altitude by county standards. Its eastern part is in the

Chiltern Hills The Chiltern Hills is a chalk escarpment in England. The area, northwest of London, covers stretching from Goring-on-Thames in the southwest to Hitchin in the northeast - across Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire, and Bedfordshire. ...

Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Shirburn, the largest civil parish in the district, is forested to the south. A motorway cuts across one edge.

Manor and castle

Shirburn is a

spring line settlement Spring line settlements occur where a ridge of permeable rock lies over impermeable rock, resulting in a line of springs along the contact between the two layers. Spring line (or springline) settlements will sometimes form around these springs, bec ...

at the foot of the Chiltern

escarpment An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations. The terms ''scarp'' and ''scarp face'' are often used interchangeably with ''escar ...

. 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 ...

of 1086 records that the

manor Manor may refer to: Land ownership *Manorialism or "manor system", the method of land ownership (or "tenure") in parts of medieval Europe, notably England *Lord of the manor, the owner of an agreed area of land (or "manor") under manorialism *Man ...

of Shirburn was divided equally between Robert D'Oyly and his brother in arms Roger d'Ivry. The building of Shirburn Castle was licensed in 1377. It was owned by the Chamberlain family for many generations. Shirburn Castle became a centre of Recusancy throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. The castle was renovated and remodelled in the Georgian era by the

Thomas Parker, 1st Earl of Macclesfield Thomas Parker, 1st Earl of Macclesfield, (23 July 1666 – 28 April 1732) was an English Whig politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1705 to 1710. He was Lord Chief Justice from 1710 to 1718 and acted briefly as one of the regents befo ...

who made it his family seat, and altered further in the early 19th century; the property is still owned by the Macclesfield family company, although the present (2020) 9th Earl no longer resides there, having been forced by the family company to leave in 2005.Neutral Citation Number: [2003] EWHC 1846 (Ch)
accessed 18 December 2012.

Parish church

Shirburn had a

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...

by the 12th century. Between 1146 and 1163 the church seems to have been granted to

Dorchester Abbey The Abbey Church of St Peter and St Paul, more usually called Dorchester Abbey, is a Church of England parish church in Dorchester on Thames, Oxfordshire, about southeast of Oxford. It was formerly a Norman abbey church and was built on the s ...

. The oldest part of today's

Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ca ...

of All Saints is the

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...

, which is apparently

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

, except for the 18th-century upper stage. In the 13th century, north and south

aisles Aisles is a six-piece progressive rock band originally from Santiago, Chile. The group was formed in 2001 by brothers Germán (guitar) and Luis Vergara (keyboards), and childhood friend Rodrigo Sepúlveda (guitar). Later on, it expanded to incl ...

and arcades were added to the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

, Whig politician and

Lord Chancellor The lord chancellor, formally the lord high chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. The ...

impeached in 1725, who purchased the castle in 1716 and extensively remodelled it, retired to Shirburn and was buried there after his death in London on 28 April 1732, as were succeeding members of his family. In 1876 the architect

T. H. Wyatt Thomas Henry Wyatt (9 May 1807 – 5 August 1880) was an Anglo-Irish architect. He had a prolific and distinguished career, being elected President of the Royal Institute of British Architects 1870–73 and being awarded its Royal Gold Medal for ...

restored the building at the expense of the

Earl of Macclesfield Earl of Macclesfield is a title that has been created twice. The first creation came in the Peerage of England in 1679 in favour of the soldier and politician Charles Gerard, 1st Baron Gerard. He had already been created Baron Gerard, of Bran ...

. In 1943 All Saints' parish was combined with that of St. Mary's, Pyrton. The combined parish is now part of the

Benefice A benefice () or living is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The Roman Empire used the Latin term as a benefit to an individual from the Empire for services rendered. Its use was adopted by ...

of Icknield.The Benefice of Icknield: All Saints Church, Shirburn
/ref> All Saints' Church became redundant in 1995 and now belongs to the Churches Conservation Trust.

Demography

The 2011 Census incorporated its figures for Adwell and Stoke Talmage to the north into an output area, used to equate to an arbitrarily enlarged civil parish definition of Shirburn, due to the former's small population.Parish: Key Statistics: Population.
( 2011 census The maps annexed to both definitions and data sets are identical. Retrieved 2016-05-04.

Education

The parish school set up by 1808 was said in 1871 to be occupying a converted cottage. In 1946 it became a junior school passing older pupils on to

Chinnor Chinnor is a large village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in South Oxfordshire about southeast of Thame, close to the border with Buckinghamshire. The village is a spring line settlement on the Icknield Way below the Chiltern Hills ...

. It was closed altogether in 1950.

Transport

In 1869–1872, the

Watlington and Princes Risborough Railway The Watlington and Princes Risborough Railway was an independent English railway company that opened a line between the Oxfordshire towns of Watlington and Chinnor in 1872. The branch, which connected to the Great Western Railway (GWR) mainli ...

was built through the parish with a terminus south of Shirburn in the parish of . The

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

took over the line in 1883.

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

ways withdrew its passenger services in 1957 and closed the line to freight traffic in 1961.

References

Sources

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External links

360° Panorama of Church interiors
{{authority control Villages in Oxfordshire Civil parishes in Oxfordshire